Applied art

The Petersburg Faberge firm famous for its exquisite masterpieces, ranks with the finest Russian jewellery firms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Faberge’s ancestors left France in the 17th century to settle in Parnu (Estonia). At the beginning of the 19th century Gustave Faberge moved to Petersburg, and in 1842 he opened a jewellery workshop there. His son Peter-Carl Faberge, born in 1846, was educated in Italy, England and France. On his return to Petersburg in 1870, at the age of 24, he took over his father’s workshop which in a short time became a large enterprise employing 500 workers, with branches in Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and London.

The name “huta glassware” originated from the word “huta” which in old times meant handicraft glass workshop.

Archaelogical findings prove that glass production in the territory of the Ukraine originated in the ancient state of the Kiev Rus, the period of the common cultural development of the Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian peoples. Several glassworking shops of that period have been found by excavations, and there was one such shop on the grounds of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery (now Kiev-Pechersk state historical-cultural museum).

Ceramics is a widely spread form of Ukrainian folk art. It was developed by many generations of gifted folk artists.

Diversity of forms, ornaments and techniques of execution has made this folk art extremely popular.

The production of ceramic wares is concentrated in localities rich in deposits of high-quality clays. The principal centres of ceramic production in the Ukraine were Opishnya, Mirhorod, Zinkiv (Poltava Region); Kiev, Dybyntsi, Vasylkiv (near Kiev); Kaniv (now Cherkassy Region); Nova Vodolaha and Popivka (Kharkiv Region); Bar, Bubnivka, Haisin, Tulchyn (Vinnytsa Region); Kolomia, Kosiv, Kuty, Pistyn (the present Ivano-Frankivsk Region); Vilkivka, Dubovynka, Uzhhorod (Transcarpathian Region).

Folk carving is an ancient form of art. Its relics have been known in the Ukraine mainly since the XVI — XVII centuries. Interesting accounts of those times tell about the abundarit carving on wooden buildings. Aspiring to the beautiful, the people made use of carving not only in architecture, but copiously decorated household objects and working tools with carved ornaments. Carpenters and wood-carvers created genuine masterpieces distinguished by originality of artistic forms.

Embroidery, like the weaving of colourful fabrics, has from ancient times been a favourite way of artistic decoration of various household goods in the Ukraine. It is the wonderful folk embroidery that particularly impresses one with the wealth of the Ukrainian national ornament, its rich colouring and great variety of composition.