Handicraft: definition, types. Hand-made products

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

Handicraft is the manufacture of unique products with an original idea that are used in everyday life and created by the hands of a master.

What does handwork mean to a person

For the master, this is an opportunity to bring to life the unique creation that he saw in his dreams. It is painstaking and careful finishing of every detail, so that the result is perfection.

For the buyer, this is an opportunity to purchase an individual product that is filled with love and will make life brighter, expressing the personality of the one who purchased the handmade item.

History of handicrafts

Handicraft works appeared together with the emergence of man on earth. The items that were made were always in demand, but a person, to the best of his ability, sought to add an aesthetic component to their functionality. On the basis of this, unwritten rules were first developed, which were passed from master to student. The best stuck. So the canon was formed in some area. Traditions were passed down from generation to generation, secrets and recipes were kept. handicraftexisted both in the village and in the town, when all families made objects of the same purpose, using approximately the same techniques, but introducing their personal thoughts on how best to decorate or change the shape within the tradition. Often, the products had the function of amulets, because our ancestors sincerely believed in supernatural powers. They charged things with their good energy, putting their soul into their creations. There is nothing to replace this in mass production.

Crafts of ancient Russia

In urban settlements before the Mongol-Tatar invasion, blacksmiths produced iron and steel weapons, axes, chisels, sickles, locks, keys. Jewelers minted non-ferrous metals, made gold, silver, copper and bronze jewelry. Weavers, potters, stonemasons worked in their workshops. Craftsmen processed leather and furs, wood. This is how the handicraft industry developed in the pre-Mongolian period. But after the invasion of Batu, everything was destroyed, and many artisans were taken prisoner, and the development of crafts stopped for a century. However, slowly and with the loss of skills and secrets, the crafts began to recover, as life demanded.

Types of handicrafts

These are types of folk art in which the national tradition is clearly visible. They can be subdivided into:

• paintings on ceramics, metal, papier-mâché, wood;
• fabric products, that is, various types of bobbin lace, downy and painted shawls;
• clay and wood toys;
• metal products - casting and filigree.

In such directions handicrafts developed inRussia. Now these forms of creativity can be considered in more detail.

Gzhel

Twenty-seven villages near Moscow were the owners of natural material - pottery clay. And the production of ceramics began, as archaeologists say, about seven centuries ago. It became more complicated and moved from simple unglazed products to their coating with white glaze, and then applying a pattern with blue cob alt oxide. For this, brushes made of squirrel wool of various diameters were used. Several shades of paint are applied to one side of the brush. This allows you to create both darker, more color-rich areas and light shadows. This is a skill that is taught there, in Gzhel. A ceramic artist cannot exactly repeat the pattern, and the result is a unique painting, on which curls and ornaments are only similar.

Zhostovo

This is a village near Moscow, where for almost two hundred years tin trays have been painted with garden and field flowers on a black or colored background.

The artist receives a sketch designed by the designer and begins work from the center, filling it with large roses that glow amazingly. Masters have their secrets.

Fedoskino

This is a village not far from Moscow, where they paint chests and boxes made of papier-mâché.

The miniature oil paintings glow amazingly. This effect is obtained because gold leaf and mother-of-pearl are applied to the surface before painting.

Khokhloma

History says heretwo skills were combined - turning turning bowls, caskets, spoons, brothers and the Old Believer skills of icon painting. Aluminum powder is rubbed into the “linen” coated several times with drying oil, then manually, without repeating anything, it is painted with oil paints, then covered with several layers of varnish and dried in an oven. This is how golden Khokhloma is made.

Ceramics

Pottery folk crafts are widely represented by clay toys. They are made in many parts of our country. The village of Dymkovo in the Kirov region is especially famous for such craft.

In the Arkhangelsk region, the production of toys in Kargopol has always been a family affair. The most popular figurine was Polkan, a fairy-tale creature resembling a dog and a man with epaulettes. In the village of Filimonovo, Tula Region, girls sculpted whistles from clay, collecting money for a dowry, and men made dishes. Toys without watering (pure terracotta) have been made since ancient times in the Starooskolsky district of the Belgorod region. All toys are handmade. It is impossible not to mention the candlesticks, jugs, kvass, mantel clock frames, which create fame for Mr. Skopin in the Ryazan region.

Lace

Vologda, Yelets and Mtsensk lace, which has always been woven on bobbin, is valued in Russia. These are all handmade.

Kasli casting

In the Urals, in the city of Kasli, amazing cast iron figures are cast. Once you could buy them in stores.

Now this unique product thatwill last forever, with meticulous attention to detail has disappeared from the shelves, and it can probably only be found in online stores.

Small batch production

Or otherwise it can be called the term "handicraft". Nowadays, designer clothes are made in this way, for example. Handicraft production is also the work of jewelers and furniture makers. This type of activity involves the separation of operations. For example, in the manufacture of Zhostovo trays, someone makes the trays themselves of various shapes, someone varnishes them, someone paints them. The same thing happens in Gzhel, Khokhloma, Skopin, which were mentioned above.

Russia is extremely rich in talents, original approach and high quality handicrafts.