Everywhere where people live, children play... “Horsemen” ride on sticks, “airplanes” fly with their arms outstretched to the sides, and cowardly “hares” jump with two fingers pressed to their heads. Much more daring transformations than on theater stage, fill the world of childhood. But a child cannot create on his own. He definitely needs something that would help him in his plans. And this “something” is a toy.
In science there are several points of view on the origin of games and toys. Some believe that work directly gave birth to play, others believe that in the life of primitive man, work itself carried elements of play, while others, abstracting from the history of the origin of play, see the beginning of art in a toy. Ethnographers adhere to the theory that toys initially had cult meaning and only later turned into an object of children's fun. There is also a more flexible theory, which suggests that in conditions of primitive existence, objects could have multiple meanings. “How to qualify them - as objects of art, or decoration, or cult, or magic, or as toys? “This sometimes insoluble question in reality could have a completely different solution: something like this, and another, and a third,” writes teacher Professor E. A. Arkin.
The prototypes of toys were and still are among animals. Observations by scientists and travelers say that animals not only play, but also use various objects in the game. Thus, monkeys dig the ground with a stick, throw handfuls of sand, paint clay, jump with a stick as if on stilts, and decorate themselves with scraps of cloth and branches. But these games are fundamentally different from the games of even the smallest child.
Scientists decided to teach a monkey to play like a human, but the attempts were in vain. A very smart monkey could not create the most primitive tower out of bricks, although the experimenter built it more than once before her eyes. But the same bricks in the hands of an already three-year-old child come to life, growing into houses, bridges, fortresses, and fairy-tale palaces. Very early age Through play and toys, a child not only learns about the world, but also mentally transforms it.
Perhaps the first toys were given to our distant ancestors by nature itself: shells, stones, leaves and flowers, animal bones or fancy tree branches. However, one can only guess about this. By analogy with modern times, we can assume that any item of the most serious purpose in the everyday life of adults, falling into the hands of a child, became a toy. Or perhaps the first “real” toys were made by children themselves, and then adults, watching the children, realized the need for toys and began making them specially. Archaeologists found only those toys that did not succumb to the ravages of time. Moreover, there are very few such finds to build a completely reliable version.
There were changes of civilizations, some died and new ones were born. Children changed, and adults changed. The toys changed. But among them there are common ones for the entire history of mankind.
Rattle, ball, top and doll. These toys originated during human childhood. Having passed through a multifaceted kaleidoscope of morals, ways of life, habits, tastes, religions, they still live today. However, for all their amazing similarities, there is an equally amazing deep difference in the content of play with these toys among different peoples.
No baby grows up without a rattle. Archaeologists have recovered thousand-year-old rattles from graves. In Peru during excavations ancient city Pahaten, a mummy of a child was discovered, next to which lay a rattle - a sea shell with grains of sand inside. The hole was filled with a substance resembling tar. Archaeologist Schliemann, while excavating ancient Troy, found a wonderful rattle with metal particles inside. Rattles were made from tree fruits, ripe poppy heads, woven from twigs, sculpted from clay... Undoubtedly, the rattle was associated with the cult. For example, Bakairi and other tribes South America decorated their religious dances with the noise of rattles. She was a “amulet” - her noise frightened evil spirits. But only in the world of adults did the rattle possess this mysterious power; for a child it was just a toy - joy and fun.
Leader with a bear (Zagorsk) - made of papier-mâché...
The ball was just as two-faced. Among the American Indians, it was a sacred object that could not be touched with hands. He was a symbol of the sun, moon and earth. And the Eskimos greeted strangers with a game of ball. At the end of the year, they also played and celebrated the victory over the ominous mythical creature Zedna. IN Ancient Greece the ball was also both a toy and an offering, pleasing to the gods, to whom the Greeks attributed its invention. The goddess of beauty Aphrodite says to Eros: “I will give you a wonderful toy: this is a fast-flying ball, you will not get any other better fun from the hands of Hephaestus.” Balls sewn together with leather rope were found during excavations in Egypt. Australian balls made from animal bladders, from the skins of marsupial rats, and twisted from hair have also reached us.
And another example is a top. In its sleepy hum, in its sliding movement, long and even, unearthly sounds were once imagined by the ancestors. It was used at festivals in honor of the dead. But the same top was one of the favorite toys in Egypt, Siam, Burma, the Eskimos and the blacks of South America, where they chased it with a whip and ran after it. Making the tops was simple. Among the tribes of East Africa, they were made from a round piece of pumpkin rind, into which a stick was threaded; among the Indians, they were made from a wax plate or empty fruit placed on a stick.
But nowhere among the toys was there and is nothing equal to a doll. Most clearly intertwined in it are those magical power, which adults invested in her, and the touching affection of children for her. At the earliest stages of civilization and in the eras of the most highly developed cultures, it awakened in the child the whole gamut of human feelings: love, patronage, envy, power, kindness, cruelty and nobility...
The famous ethnographer Andree says: “I would have to list all the countries and peoples if I wanted to outline the sphere of distribution of the doll.” Archaeologists have found it everywhere: in excavations of ancient cities and Roman catacombs, in Egyptian tombs, in pagan burials and in the graves of Christians. And it served at the same time as a toy, an idol, and a magical remedy. In Ancient Greece, when girls got married, they brought their favorite doll to the sacrificial altar as a sign of their readiness to fulfill their maternal duty. And girls in Chukotka, when getting married, hid their dolls in the headboard. The dolls were not given to anyone here; they were cherished as a talisman of motherhood. Ancient Georgian dolls have a cross on their face in imitation of the sun-faced gods. Like the figurines of these gods, the dolls are endowed with a colorfully painted body and a head with a cross symbol. An Eskimo doll also has no face, and instead of a nose a bird’s beak is often sewn on - the Eskimos were afraid that a doll with a face could acquire a soul and harm the child.
Russian folk dolls have their own special character. “Haircut” dolls are deftly twisted from straw, arms akimbo, as if out of village habit. Foresters made of moss and cones seem to have come from the land of fairy tales, there is so much mysterious forest poetry in them. “Punks” from the Arkhangelsk region with flat, barely outlined faces are more like silent idols, little “stone women” than dolls. Their simplicity is symbolic, like the language of primitive art, understandable today to children all over the world. The child freely dressed such a doll in the images of his imagination. He could imagine her as a woman, a child, a peasant, a lady, and a person in general. Folk craftsmen reserved the child’s right to creativity and trusted him.
Her jealous patrons, children, display amazing ingenuity in making dolls. A hint of a human figure is enough for an ear of corn, a rolled piece of bast or a simple log to become an object of the most tender care, essentially the same among African children, among the Indians of North America and among the peasant children of Russia.
The Middle Ages left us other witnesses. In countries Western Europe- France, Spain, Italy, Germany - luxurious dolls appeared at the royal courts, whose costumes were used to study fashion. It is known that already in 1391 the princess of England wanted to have dolls dressed in the latest fashions Parisian court. There is a legend that during one of the bloody wars between France and England, the ministers of both courts of Versailles and St. James issued a free border pass to a doll, whose costume and hairstyle served as an example of the fashion of the time. Such dolls sometimes cost a fortune. They had dowry chests with clothes and shoes and even doll houses with furniture made of expensive wood and dishes made of porcelain, glass and silver. Even the owner could only look at such a doll. “Each elegant doll makes one girl arrogant and a hundred others envious,” wrote the Italian scientist Colozza.
Now humanity, taught to be careful in its relations with the past, cherishes its “toy” history, stores relics of distant childhood in the museums of Berlin, Zurich, Nuremberg, Munich, Paris, London, Moscow, Leningrad. A unique collection of toys in our country belongs to Zagorsk, the city of the oldest Russian handicraft toy industry.
An ancient legend connects the appearance of the first wooden toy here with the name of the founder of the famous Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Abbot Sergius of Radonezh, who allegedly gave homemade products to children. Interesting historical information was preserved in the palace books of the 17th century, which mention the purchase of “amusing carts, wooden horses, birds” for the royal children. Historian I.K. Snegirev reports that “peasants and peasant women of the villages lying along the Trinity Road offered the Tsar and Tsarina bread, rolls, pies, pancakes, cheese, kvass, beer, mash, honey, honeycomb, nuts, turnips, lingonberries, strawberries and other vegetables, and for the princes - toys and fun.”
There has long been a legend among the people that in the middle of the 18th century the deaf and dumb Tatyga appeared among the townspeople and laid the foundation for the entire toy production. He carved a large wooden doll from a linden tree and sold it to the shop of the merchant Erofeev. He put it up as a decoration, but soon an unexpected buyer was found. And then Tatyga received another order, then another, and the toy industry began in Sergievsky Posad. IN mid-19th century, it became the largest in Russia - 1,500 toy artisans lived here. What was sold in the monastery shops: carved painted figurines of ladies and hussars, and various soldiers - individually, in platoons, on horseback, on foot, and dolls for every taste - piquant pale-faced “waists”, black-eyed “blinkers”, tumblers, bowing young ladies and dandies.
The most different aspects of life are reflected in the toy: peasant and urban life with their customs and fashion, war, religion, art and a fairy-tale, fantasy world.
At the beginning of the 19th century, completely new toys appeared in Posad - molded from papier-mâché - then the first step was taken in Russia on the path to mass industrial toys. Exotic dogs and lions with blue manes, funny hares with a “squeak”, roosters “crowing”, beckoning with their varnished surfaces, like colorful fairground signs, had no competitors either here or abroad. It is curious how boldly and resourcefully the craftsman enlivened his toys with what was at hand. Here is a goat chaser, and in the chaser’s hands is a real fluff, or a bird “with a squeak”, which are only found in fairy tales, and the tail is made of real feathers!
At the end of the 19th century, this measure of the combination of the real and the conventional began to be violated. The toys were sprinkled with cereal, sawdust, crushed wool, and covered with rabbit skins - all for the sake of being close to living nature. The toy lost its unique “toy” language and went beyond the boundaries of art. Particularly destructive was the influence of cheap German industrial toys, which filled all European markets in the 19th century. The Sergiev handicraftsmen could not withstand the competition, went bankrupt, the craft lost its former artistic face and by the end of the century fell into complete decline. This is how dozens of fisheries perished in different places. But something remains. The Bogorodsk carving “in linen” attracts you with a feeling of the nature of pure wood, untouched by paint. Thin petals of gold still shine preciously on bright Dymkovo toys. The beauty of clay, white as porcelain, from which toys are still sculpted today in the village of Filimonovo, Tula region, is incomparable. And, as once before, the whistles from the village of Abashevo, Penza region, are amazing in their own way. The antlers of goats and deer, decorated with bronze or aluminum, are sometimes bent like a crescent, sometimes thrown back steeply, sometimes majestically crowning the heads of fairy-tale animals like a crown. Their shiny, fantastic faces resemble Yuletide masks.
But this is no longer a toy. She lost the environment for which she was born, turning into museum exhibit or as a memorable gift. A gift that is dear because you feel the warmth in it manual labor and almost childish naivety, pure and frank.
Now children live in a different world. They are fascinated by spaceports, rockets, radio-controlled rovers, astronauts and dolls that can do everything that people can do. The dolls walk, run, cry, laugh, swim, sit on the potty, sing, talk... In a word, the age of technology has come in toys, with its progress, with its flow of various information, with its sober assessment objective world. It is no coincidence that scientists in many countries are concerned about the imbalance of the emotional and rational principles in modern man. It is especially dangerous to lose the sharpness of emotional perception in childhood, when the spiritual side of the personality is just emerging. Even a toy can do something here. The folk toy became an exhibit. They no longer run around with her, don’t fuss with her, don’t play with her. But they are still looking at her. They look attentively, with sincere curiosity and joy. They watch how the Bogorodsk “chickens in a circle” tirelessly peck, how the strings twitch in rhythm. Listening to the tapping of wooden beaks...
Children, who have received the same pleasure from playing throughout the history of mankind, hear themselves and, perhaps, echoes of ancient times.
Galina Dain, researcher Zagorsk Toy Museum, Photo by V. Orlov
From the history of children's toysArtist Walter Trier depicted the toys that children played with in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
At the beginning new era Tumbler dolls appeared in Japan. It was probably the oldest toy to use stable equilibrium. And at the end of the 18th century, the first nesting doll appeared in Russia, which immediately gained enormous recognition as a symbol of the Russian folk art. The prototype of the Russian nesting doll was a figurine of a Buddhist monk brought from Japan, where one large figurine contained several smaller figures nested one inside the other.
At the end of the 19th century, a patent was issued for doll toys in the United States - for the first time such toys were being mass-produced.
Around this time, Alphabet Cubes appear. As it turned out, very good way teaching children to read and write.
Margaret Steiff makes several toy elephants just as gifts. Then she sews other animals. Over the course of a year, Steiff’s work becomes very popular and the hobby gradually turns into a family business.
In 1886, weapon models appeared again.
The appearance of weapons is sometimes associated with the post-war period, when some gun manufacturers switched to producing weapons for children.
1888 - Mezel Johan invented a talking doll. In 1920, such a doll was modernized by Thomas Edison - he inserted a phonograph into it.
1889 - patented snow scooter - an easy-to-control sled thanks to a guide ski.
In 1898, industrial production of soft and musical toys began.
1903 - Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith produce the first box of crayons.
Eagle Rubber begins production balloons. Playing with balls is not only fun, it is a great way to develop balance and coordination and improve motor skills.
1924 - A.A. Milne creates the story of Winnie the Pooh, and in 1928 Walt Disney creates Mickey Mouse.
Ole Kirk Christiansen founded his own company in 1932, which began with the production of stepladders, ironing boards and wooden toys. In 1934, the world heard the word LEGO, which translated from Danish means “exciting game.”
The game Monopoly became a bestseller in America in 1935. It was invented in 1933. Today, Monopoly is published in 26 languages and sold in 80 countries. More than half a million people played it. In 1975, the United States printed twice as much Monopoly money as actual currency.
The beginning of the 1940s - the appearance of aircraft models made of plastic. Initially, they served the designers of the aviation industry to demonstrate projects to customers, but now the modeling business has touched the toy industry. Until then, models were made of wood.
1957 - the time of the Flying Saucers. In the 20th century, WHAM-O alone produced over one hundred million plastic discs.
1959 - Elliot Handler and his wife Ruth create the Barbie doll. Today, one Barbie doll is sold every second.
Arthur Melin and Richard Nerr start selling hulahubs. Merlin and Nerr actually revived a toy that was known 1000 BC in Egypt. In the first year, about 15 million hoops were sold.
In 1964, Cheburashka appeared.
By 1976, table hockey, tennis and squash appeared.
1974 - Four engineers created Magna Doodle
- a drawing board with a special pen with a magnetic rod that does not stain children’s hands. This masterpiece was created in search of a dust-free chalkboard. Magna Doodle offers the widest variety of uses. Currently, about 50 million copies have been sold.
1977 - Star Wars characters become extremely popular after the release of George Lucas' film. They lead the character toy market.
In 1982 - the Rubik's cube appeared - one of the most popular puzzles of the twentieth century, invented by the Hungarian Ernő Rubik.
1987 - the first intellectual toy - Teddy Bear. He is trained to read books out loud.
1997 - Tamagotchi, which became a super hit among toys. But if communication with Tamagocchi was practically limited to communication with a small screen that symbolized this creature, then with Furby everything was different.
1998 - at the beginning of the year, the production of Furbies was launched, and in November the first Ferbies went on sale and immediately became extremely popular. In stores, no more than 2 toys were released to one buyer.
Creation is fundamental new toy or games - by design, by the method of action, by the figurative structure - this is not a frequent event. The originality of the toy, uniqueness and inimitability are its great advantages, which differ from standard, mass-produced samples.
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Topic of the week: Russian folk toy.
The folk toy is figurative, colorful, and original in design. It is accessible to children, as it contains concise content that children can understand. These are fairy-tale images familiar to children, people and animals, made from local natural materials.Among the arts and crafts created over generationsRussian craftsmen from different regions, one can note various kinds of toys made from natural materials (wood, clay, straw, etc.). Each product carries goodness, joy, the warmth of the master’s hands and imagination, which captures both children and adults, captivating them in a world of human imagination and outstanding fine craftsmanship.
From time immemorial, for each nationality, for residents of a certain region of Russia, there have been unique traditions of making folk toys. Over time, the technique of creating a toy changed, the toy itself acquired a more advanced shape and color combination of painting elements, combining the rich culture of our people, national characteristics and the originality of the corners of Russia.
You can often recognize the area that is famous for its production by looking at a folk toy. Where there is high-quality clay, unique in its properties, craftsmen create clay toys; In regions rich in wood species, there are always skilled wood carvers who create amazing wooden figurines.
Materials for making toys were varied. This includes clay, wood, and, starting from the first half of the 19th century, papier-mâché. They also made toys from straw, moss, fir cones, and flax.
Russian wooden painted doll appeared in Russia in the 90s of the 19th century, during a period of rapid economic and cultural development of the country. A workshop was opened in Moscow Children's education" It was here that the idea of creating a Russian wooden doll was born, sketches for which were proposed by the professional artist Sergei Malyutin (1859-1937), one of the active creators and propagandists of the “Russian style” in art. The idea of creating a detachable wooden doll was suggested to S.V. Malyutin by a Japanese toy brought from the island of Honshu by the wife of the Russian philanthropist S.I. Mamontov. It was a figure of a good-natured bald old man, the sage Fukurama, in which there were several more figures nested one inside the other.
The resulting doll was a round-faced peasant girl in an embroidered shirt, sundress and apron, in a colorful scarf, holding a black rooster in her hands.
The Russian wooden doll was named matryoshka. She was a symbol of motherhood and fertility, since a doll with a large family perfectly expresses the figurative basis of this ancient symbol of human culture, in particular the maternal essence of a Russian woman.
The same “city of craftsmen” has become Volga region village of Gorodets, Nizhny Novgorod province. Everything was made here - from ships to clay whistles. Of those crafts that “survived” to today, it is worth mentioning the following: Gorodets painted panels; a toy “axe” with spinning scenes; Gorodets children's painted rocking horses and children's furniture. Nearby there was a Fedoseyevskaya “toporshchina” with gurneys and carts; the famous Zhbannikov toy, similar in painting to the “golden” Khokhloma, which also came from the Gorodets region. And there also lived master luge makers, bow makers, chest makers, balalaika makers, embroiderers, potters, spoon makers, and coopers.
Another toy center that formed later, at the beginning of the 18th century, was Bogorodskaya village, which has become a major industry for wooden toys.
Folk toy in a child’s life.
The story toy depicts the world of fairy tales and fairy tale images, as well as the range of life phenomena that a person (and especially a child) encounters in everyday life.
As soon as the baby was born, a toy or “funny game” (after the name of his ancestors) became his faithful companion. For fun, he was given rattles or “sharkuns.” It could be a dried poppy seed box, a rattle, a bright piece of fabric with bells or pieces of copper sewn on.
In addition to being fun, these toys were amulets, fulfilling protective function and protecting children from the influence of evil spirits or people, from all sorts of life troubles. They sent a guardian angel to the child, who helped him in difficult times and warded off the attack. A rattle or a ball, which are symbols of the firmament and the world, contributed to the baby’s unity with the world of goodness. However, in Slavic folk toys it was not customary to depict an evil or scary character, because in the old days it was believed that such a toy could bring evil to children.
The child grew, the toys around him changed, performing function
"developmental assistant"
. They became more complex, helped him learn to walk, study independently surrounding reality. For this purpose, various lollipops were made.
The toy captivated the child with the sounds made by the bells or rattles attached to it, the rhythmic movement of the wheels - and the baby moved after the stick with the toy attached.
It was the turn of the gurney, but already on a rope. Most often it was a horse, serving as a symbol of the sun. The child felt that his friend was following on his heels, fulfilling the will of his master. Thus, for the first time the child felt his strength, responsibility, confidence, and desire to be a brave friend for his favorite toy.
Our ancestors were far-sighted and resourceful. Intuitively realizing the nature of the child and his psychology, they gave him that children's toy that not only entertained, but also educated the baby, preparing him for a new stage of his life.
Varieties of Russian folk toys
Dymkovo toy
The Dymkovo toy is named after the settlement Dymkovo, located near the city of Kirov.
Everyone likes lively, festive, lavishly sculpted and painted dolls of dandy ladies, goats, horses, roosters with painted tails, duck-whistles, piglets, bears and many other toys.
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The fishery originated in the distant past. During the festivities, “Svistoplyaska,” people brought small whistles with them and whistled on them all day long. So it came to be that “in Vyatka they make whistling toys.” The whistle was credited with magical properties. It was believed that by whistling, a person could remove damage from himself and even recover, and all the bad things from him would pass on to the enemy, who wished evil and sent the disease. Such toys were traditionally kept near the window.
The craftsmen worked in the village of Dymkovo alone and in families. They dug clay, mixed it with sand, kneaded it first with their feet and then with their hands. The products were fired in Russian kilns and then painted. Women and children took part in this work.
Nowadays, craftsmen work in workshops, still making and painting the toy by hand, which is why it has unique shapes and colors.
The process of making a toy can be divided into two stages: modeling the product and painting it. The sculpting methods are very simple. Craftswomen don’t make sketches. For example, when depicting a doll, craftswomen first make a skirt from a layer of clay, resulting in a hollow bell-shaped shape; the head, neck and upper part of the body are made from one piece, and the details of the clothing: ruffles, frills, cuffs, hats, etc. are sculpted separately and applied to the main form, calling them moldings.
The Dymkovo toy is very specific. There are traditions in creating its form and in its design, which are expressed primarily in staticity, splendor of forms and brightness of color. Craftswomen strictly preserve and support the traditions established by previous masters, but each has its own characteristics in the work.
All products of Dymkovo craftsmen are distinguished by cheerfulness and subtle humor, which especially attracts the attention of children: they like to look at the toys and listen to stories about where and how they are made.
Filimonovskaya toy
The village of Filimonovo, Odoevsky district, Tula region, is famous for its famous folk craft, where they make amazing clay toys. The village is located near deposits of good white clay. Legend says that grandfather Philemon lived in these places, and he made toys.
The toys are funny, whimsical and at the same time simple in execution and very expressive. The subjects of the Filimonov toy are traditional - these are ladies, peasant women, soldiers with epaulettes, dancing couples, riders on horses; among animals - cows, rams with tightly curled horns, a fox with a rooster and mysterious creatures, the prototype of which is difficult to determine.
All toys have elastic bodies, long or short legs, elongated necks with small heads. Funny toys depict long-legged and elongated soldiers in characteristic costumes. The painting is bright, and mainly yellow, red, orange, green, blue and white colors. The painting of toys is traditional: horses, cows and rams are painted with stripes, and human figures are painted using all the elements in a variety of combinations. The faces of the figures always remain white, and only small strokes and dots outline the eyes, mouth, and nose.
All Filimonov whistle toys are molded from local plastic clay “siniki”, which gives a white shard after firing. Clay, unique in its properties, allows the master to sculpt the entire sculpture from one piece, achieving beautifully plastic, expressive forms. After drying, the products are fired in muffle furnaces. Painted with aniline dyes on varnish. An ornament of green and crimson stripes, suns, Christmas trees, and trellises is applied to a white or yellow background. Conventionally, all toys can be divided into several groups: 1) people - soldiers, ladies 2) animals - deer, cows, roosters and hens 3) multi-figure compositions - love, tea party, three. The plots of toys are very diverse, but the stylistic features developed by many generations of folk craftsmen remain unchanged.
Bogorodskaya toy
Folk craftsmen in the village of Bogorodskoye, Moscow region, create wooden carved toys (chickens pecking grains; bears beating an anvil, etc.).
All Bogorodsk toys are jokey, humorous, and active toys.
For more than 300 years, wood carvers have lived in the village of Bogorodskoye. Families work here. Now there are about a hundred carvers in the village.
Toys are cut from linden. Before making a toy, the wood must dry for two years. Waste linden wood chips are also used for toys, but smaller ones, as well as for stands for them. Bogorodsk toys are often unpainted and rarely painted.
Bogorodskaya carving still occupies significant place in decorative arts. Making excellent use of the artistic expressiveness of the texture and color of wood, the craftsmen skillfully combine smooth surface treatment in the toy with shallow cuts and grooves, which they use to convey various details. Bogorodsk toys are characterized by plot, group compositions, and genre scenes; craftsmen often use fairy-tale and historical themes.
Now toys are finished with carvings, which rhythmically lie on the surface and decorate the product. Traditionally, some parts of the toy are made movable. This is achieved in various ways. Some toys are mounted on bedside tables, and a spring is inserted inside, which powers the figure. Other toys are performed on spreader bars (“Herd”, “Cavalry”, “Soldiers”). You can also find toys whose moving parts are attached to weighted strings; the weight swings, pulls the thread, it activates parts of the figures.
Children love not only to look at them, but also to set them in motion, studying the nature of the mechanics underlying the Bogorodsk toy. In addition, wood is a warm, natural material, completely safe for children.
Gorodets wooden toy
The Gorodets toy is a special phenomenon in Russian culture. City of Gorodets Nizhny Novgorod region truly unique, it is also called Small Kitezh.
In the 19th century, in the villages around Gorodets (Nizhny Novgorod region), craftsmen who made spinning wheels also made painted wooden toys.
At first, not even Gorodets, but the villages surrounding it were famous for their toy goods. But later it was in Gorodets that this craft took hold and developed to great art with significant trade turnover. It was here that the original Gorodets painting finally took shape stylistically, the main types of Gorodets toys were formed, which were made in almost every settlement of the Gorodets bush.
Gorodets painting arose on the basis of an ancient craft that united residents of Nizhny Novgorod villages located on the Uzole River. The craftsmen decorated the manufactured products with bracket carvings and inlays. The painting appeared here in the 60s of the 19th century. and marked the beginning of a new Gorodets style - painting bright colors. The fishery reached its peak in the 80s of the 19th century. Uzol folk craftsmen produced stands for the spinning comb and toys painted with red, yellow, green and black colors and scenes from peasant, merchant and urban life, and images of fairy-tale birds and horses. The elegant products of the craftsmen from the villages of Kurtsevo, the villages of Koskovo and others spread throughout the country. The art of Gorodets painting enjoyed great success in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The material for the products is deciduous and coniferous wood. Techniques for manufacturing products: turning and carpentry. Painting is done oil paints by the texture of the wood and by the colored background of the products applied with nitro paints. During final finishing, the products are covered with a dense and durable film of varnish.
A characteristic feature of the Gorodets craft is the execution of the design on colored backgrounds: yellow, green, blue, indigo, red; bright colors and painting based on the principle of placing large colorful spots. Typical subjects for Gorodets products. as in the old days, images of horses, birds, flowers, and scenes from folk life remain.
Among the variety of Gorodets toys, the horse, in its various compositional and figurative variants, occupies one of the leading positions. Until the 20th century, horses played a special role in both economic and military affairs. It is no coincidence that children in both peasant and princely families had a toy horse.
The painted sound or musical toy of Gorodets is also interesting: bird whistles, nesting doll whistles, pipes and nozzles, rattles, rattles, balalaikas and bells bring joy to children not only with the sounds and noises they produce, but also with the brightness of the colors of the intricate Gorodets pattern. Ball-shaped rattles were filled with peas, small pebbles, buttons - and the sound was different. By playing pipes and whistles, children developed the respiratory system, and rattles and various percussion instruments, as already mentioned, contributed to the development of a sense of rhythm and an ear for music.
Rag-doll
Since time immemorial, every nation has had its own dolls, which reflected their social structure, way of life, morals and customs, technical and artistic achievements. Each doll owes its birth to human labor activity, organically connected with nature (cultivating the land, fishing, hunting, etc.).
The very first dolls were made from ash. Ash was taken from the hearths and mixed with water. Then a ball was rolled up and a skirt was attached to it. This doll was called Baba - a female deity. “Baba” was passed down through the female line from grandmother to granddaughter, and was given as a gift on the wedding day. This doll clearly did not have a playful character, but was a talisman for a woman, a home, a hearth.
Ritual dolls were made for special occasions. Various magical properties were attributed to them; they could protect a person from evil forces, take on misfortunes, and help a good harvest. There were dolls that helped a woman with housework, or dolls that taught a child gratitude, and there were also those that could ward off illness.
The Slavs made dolls from scrap materials - ash, straw, clay, scraps of rags. It was believed that a toy made from flax would ward off all illnesses from the baby, so they were also considered amulets. They also made the so-called ten-handles - symbols of prosperity and happiness, krupenichek - a symbol of prosperity. The krupenichka was filled with grain, and then it was sown first - it was believed that then the harvest would be good and the family would live in abundance. Each cereal had its own meaning: rice was considered a festive grain, buckwheat was a symbol of wealth, pearl barley was considered a symbol of satiety, and oats were a symbol of strength.
Other common dolls, haircuts, were created hastily from a bunch of cut grass, so that the child would not be bored when the mother was working in the field. Patchwork dolls were also used for play; older girls independently sewed outfits for them, painted them, and braided their hair.
Village girls played rag dolls. Mothers deftly made dolls for their daughters from pieces of fabric and rope. Moreover, such a doll was not thrown away; it was carefully kept in the house, passed from daughter to daughter, because peasant families traditionally had many children. The doll’s face was not drawn, and this allowed the child to come up with the character and appearance of the rag girlfriend himself. Our ancestors believed that such games taught a girl to be a good mother and housewife in the future.
In the vast expanses of the Russian land, dolls were created for various occasions. These are Vepsian dolls (traditional ritual), made from scraps of worn fabric, personifying a married woman (female fertility and maturity). These are “krupenichki” - pouch dolls in which buckwheat grains were stored for the new harvest.
There were also “swaddle” dolls. Such a children’s doll easily fit in the palm of your hand. Herthey placed it in the cradle of a newborn child, so that she would take upon herself all the evil that was intended for the baby. Later, such a doll was placed in the baby’s hand as a kind of finger massager, and was also inserted into the folds of the child’s clothing. If guests came, they praised the doll, not the baby, for fear of jinxing him.
There were also dolls - “Moskovki” (a doll with 6 children tied to a belt - as a symbol of maternal love and tenderness), “stolbushki” (a doll on birch bark tubes) and fatty “Kostromushki” (a plump doll in an elegant dress, symbolizing satiety and wealth in the house).
Story folk toys goes back to ancient times. This is the earliest form artistic creativity the people who inhabited Russia, which has changed over many centuries, combining the flavor and versatility of the culture of our people.
Apparently this is why the toy came from antiquity to our time, to entertain and captivate the child. The task before the toy then and now is the same - it serves the child as a friend and teacher, enriches his world with magical energy and draws the child into a fascinating world of fantasy.
Incredible facts
We often believe that robots are an achievement of our era - era of high technology, however, few people know that in the distant past, amazing mechanical toys and machines were made. Incredible robot in the form of a caterpillar, auctioned in 2010, is proof that resourceful 19th-century inventors created their own robot toys that amaze audiences even today.
Ethiopian caterpillar - a funny antique toy
This original caterpillar was created made of high standard gold and decorated precious stones. This makes it clear that our ancestors created these products more from an aesthetic point of view than from a functional one.
It's hard to believe, but this incredible mechanical robot was created before the era of electricity. at the beginning of the century before last. Its author is a Swiss watchmaker Henry Maillarde, who was going to sell it to wealthy Chinese aristocrats.
The robot was named "Ethiopian caterpillar" when Maillardet and his partner, the legendary watchmaker Jacques Droz organized an exhibition to showcase their collection of miniature jewelery toys in London. This collection surprised the audience a lot.
Currently, only six robots created by Maillard are known, 5 of which are in jewelry collections in Europe, one of them in Patek-Philippe Museum, and two more in Sandoz.
Not much is known about Henry Maillard. He was born in 1745 in Switzerland and was a master watchmaker in London, making watches and other mechanisms, including various robots. Among them were special robots - automatons , mechanical toy machines that could write in French and English.
The movements of the automatons, who could also draw pictures, were based on principles of classical mechanics. When one such robot was introduced in Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1928, no one knew exactly where it came from or who its author was. However, when the machine was launched, he himself “informed” who created it, writing the name Maillardet.
The Ethiopian caterpillar was sold to some Asian rich man at an auction in Geneva in 2010 for 415 thousand dollars. It consists of 11 segments connected together, which are separated by rings of pearls. The product is also covered with transparent red enamel and decorated with precious stones set in gold, including rubies, turquoise, diamonds and emeralds. The lower part of the toy is covered with black enamel and gold plated.
When you start the caterpillar, it begins to move quite realistically on a flat surface, moving the back and front up and down, simulating the movements of a living caterpillar using gold-plated gear wheels.
The desire to revive inanimate forms of life has haunted people since in ancient times. Craftsmen Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome tried to make wooden statues alive using hidden levers.
Fountain in the form of a robot peacock. 13th-century depiction of the eastern inventor al-Jazari
In the 16th century In Europe, mechanical watches with moving figures appeared that came to life every hour. In 1509 Leonardo da Vinci created a mechanical lion that walked through the hall and laid an iris flower at the feet of the King of France Louis XII. Thanks to the surviving sketches and descriptions of eyewitnesses, today it was possible to recreate this miracle of technology:
Da Vinci's Lion, recreated today by a French museum
Automatons
Automata or automatons began to appear in the 17th and 18th centuries and were made for royalty by watchmakers. The dolls performed various “programmed” actions: they played musical instruments, drew, wrote phrases in different languages.
Automaton "Writing Boy" Jacques Droz 1774 years has reached our days:
Automatons were essentially simple computers that were programmed to perform tasks.
Faberge eggs with surprises
Famous jeweler Carl Faberge(1846-1920) created, in addition to jewelry, mechanical toys - eggs with surprises, which royalty gave to their relatives for the holidays.
Each egg could take more than a year to complete, although Fabergé did not usually work alone
Tiger Tipu
One very interesting example of mechanical toys from the 18th century is the Tiger Tipu toy, created for the ruler Principality of Mysore (India) Tipu Sultan. The toy depicts a tiger attacking a British soldier and demonstrating the hatred of Hindus towards the enemy. In 1799 The British discovered the toy in the palace and took it with them to London, where it remains to this day. Hidden in the body of a tiger small organ with 18 keys, and the soldier's hand can move.
It may seem like a small table toy, but in fact it is made almost life-size
For many centuries, the development of humanity was unthinkable without games and toys - they helped to properly shape the psyche of children.
According to psychologists, toys are extremely important for the development of a child’s facial expressions; with their help, you can develop certain psychological qualities, and you can also improve his physical development. By interacting with his own world, which is represented by toys, the child gradually learns to communicate correctly with peers and adults.
History of Russian wooden toys
Russian folk wooden toys have been known since ancient times. They are inextricably linked with cultural, everyday and folklore features appropriate historical era and the region where their production was located. Archaeologists have discovered evidence that East Slavic tribes had wooden toys as early as the 9th century AD. However, confirmation of this can only be found in historical documents; practically no examples of such toys have survived due to the characteristics of wood as a material. Even the works of toy masters of the 18th century have reached the present day in very small quantities. Museums and collections mainly display toys from the 19th century.
The simplest examples are wood knots, only slightly adjusted with a knife. In some regions, they used fir cones, which served as hands or feet for wooden figurines. Since the wooden toy is inextricably linked with the forest, the figures are presented mainly in the form of forest inhabitants. Are they birds, animals or fictional folklore characters- “moss-movers”, depicting woodcutters or old women with bundles of brushwood on their backs. It is a known fact that at the Paris Exhibition of 1890, “moss flyers” were enthusiastically received by the foreign public.
Historical centers of wooden toy production in Russia
There are three most famous historical regions for the production of wooden toys. The first of them has been known since the 19th century. It was located along the banks White Sea, on the Onega Peninsula, in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda provinces. The toys made by northern craftsmen are very characteristic. Experts believe that they appearance due to the influence of the cult heritage of ancestors. Such toys, with their stingy, columnar appearance, resemble ancient northern idols. The facial features are not drawn very expressively, the figures are mostly cone-shaped, with flat facial parts. The main motives for producing toys for northern craftsmen are horses, birds, boats, woman dolls and various rattles.
Another historical region for the production of wooden toys was in the Nizhny Novgorod province. This region was generally famous for wood carving; the best examples of ship and house carving were produced here; “lozhkarstvo” (making wooden spoons), spindle turning and Gorodets carving were well developed. The production of carved wooden toys also played a significant role. The artistic level of this craft was unusually high. The centers for the production of traditional wooden toys were Gorodets, Semenov, Lyskovo, Purekh, Fedoseevo and some other cities.
Well, the third, most famous center for the production of traditional Russian wooden toys is the Sergiev Posad region - the city itself and the village of Bogorodskoye, located twenty-seven kilometers from it. The masters of these places preferred to use genre images to create images of your toys. These are the so-called “fool ladies” - figures of curvaceous, portly women, created using a few-color conditional painting. No less popular were the figures of hussars, priests, and monks. The obligatory characters are a hardworking man and his mighty hard-working horse. And of course, the most main character Russian folklore - a kind and lazy clubfooted bear. Bogorodsk toys were often made in the form plot compositions, they included several " characters" Sometimes such toys were made to move to enhance the effect.
Wooden toy in the modern world
With the development of industry and the invention of plastic, wooden toys gradually faded into the background. Their place was taken by bright and light plastic dolls, cubes and pyramids. For a long time, wooden toys remained just souvenirs, but were not intended directly for play. IN lately, due to increasing attention to the environmental friendliness of products for children, wooden toys are again gaining their former popularity. In addition, according to psychologists, wooden toys that are simple and even primitive in shape have a better impact on a child than plastic toys with many small parts. A child, having built a house from simple cubes, can endlessly fantasize about its external and interior decoration. And having picked up a plastic house, worked out in advance to the smallest detail by the designer of a toy factory, the child soon begins to get bored, since he has nothing to think of and add to the toy.
