http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/Lubok/lubok.html
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/slavic/dept/WebBasedLanguage/Russian/ Culture/FolkArtTheLubok.htm
Folk Art: The Lubok
A. Boguslawski


I.What is the lubok?

The lubok is the name of a specialized type of folk art, a colorful print made either from a woodcut or a copper engraving. This form of art became popular in Russia at the beginning of the sixteenth century during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. One of the earliest surviving lubki (1619-24) represents the Dormition of the Mother of God. As this lubok suggests, the content of the lubki was initially mainly religious (they provided cheap alternatives to expensive icons), but they soon came to depict a variety of secular subjects. Usually rendered in three or four contrasting colors, lubki are bright, cheerful, and expressive; they typically contain both images and text. Drawings on the lubki are simple, with no real consideration given to scale or perspective. Street merchants would sell the lubki outside monasteries, in markets, and at fairs.

II. Where does the word “lubok” come from?

No one is certain where the word “lubok” comes from, but it is possible that the word is connected to “lub,” which is the name for bast, or the inner bark of the lime tree. This bark is used in Russia for many purposes; it is used, for example, as roofing for homes, material for making baskets, as writing tablets, etc. Especially in the nineteenth century, the term “lubok” was associated with low-grade, common art as opposed to professional art; however, by the end of the nineteenth-century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the term had lost its derogatory value. This was due in part to the study of the art form by scholars and artists and the efforts of individual collectors.

III. Brief history of the lubok and examples.

The greatest collector and cataloguer of lubki was Dmitrii Rovinskii. His nine-volume study of lubki remains the definitive work on this form of art. He created the first scientific classification of the lubki. The major categories he established were icons and gospel illustrations; the virtues and evils of women; teaching, alphabets, and numbers; calendars and almanacs; light reading, novels, folktales, and hero legends; stories of the Passion of Christ, the Last Judgment, sufferings of the martyrs; popular recreation including Maslenitsa festivities, puppet comedies, and drunkenness; music, dancing, and theatricals; jokes and satires related to Ivan the Terrible and Peter I; satires adapted from foreign sources; folk prayers; and government sponsored pictorial information sheets, including proclamations and news items. So, you see, the lubki cover a wide variety of subject matter, from the sacred to the profane!

Early examples of lubki with religious content include the remarkable illustrations done of the Bible by Vasily Koren, who came to Russia from Byelorussia in 1661. An example of these illustrations is his work, The Creation of Eve from the Book of Genesis.alevala, Peer Gynt, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Spiritual. Many of his paintings have spiritual overtones.

Non-religious content began to appear in the first quarter of the eighteenth century during modernization of Russia by Peter the Great. For the first time, images of peasants were created. For example, holiday celebrations were depicted, as were typical events in the lives of peasantry, such as courting. Matchmaking became a very popular subject of the folk print. At the same time, humor became a central characteristic of the lubok; prints with dwarfs, clowns, and jesters became very popular. Lubki also began to contain sharp political and social commentary; for this reason, artists often encountered difficulties with church and government censors. In Peter the Great’s time, lubki satirized his attempts at Westernization by depicting men getting their beards chopped off or by portraying Peter himself as the Anti-Christ. One of the most famous lubki of Peter’s time was printed after his death; it was entitled, How the Mice Buried the Cat.

Folk characters, tales, songs, as well as proverbs, were also favorite subjects of lubki. An example is a late 18th- or early 19th-century colored engraving of Alkonost and Sirin, the Birds of Paradise. Representations of these characters can be seen in all kinds of folk art. Sirin is a symbol of beauty, happiness, and a reward for a life well-lived. Alkonost is the bird of death, temptation, and sorrow.

Lubki were also used as advertisements and to commemorate important events, including military battles and unusual occurrences. For example, one lubok depicts the news of a huge whale caught in the White Sea in 1760; another offers news about the appearance of a meteor in 1769. Another example is an illustration of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 1766.

Lubki were loved by all classes in Russian society, even the leaders. It was reported that in 1635 the Tsar Michael Romanov bought a series of lubki for his seven-year-old son, Alexis. In the late nineteenth- and early twentieth- centuries, lubki inspired artists of “The World of Art” group and later the avant-garde, who were interested in native folk art traditions. The influence of the lubki can be seen in early twentieth century Russian theater, ballet and opera productions, paintings, drawings and hand-printed books. Artists such as Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Vasily Kandinsky, and Natalia Goncharova were particularly influenced by this art form. In 1913, the artist Mikhail Larionov organized a huge exhibition entitled “Icon Originals and Lubok Pictures,” which helped expose young artists to the depth of Russian folk art traditions.

Modern artists whose work reflects the influence of the lubok include Sergei Gorshkov (b. 1963) and Vladimir Fomin (b. 1963). You can look at some of their paintings on the website listed below.