Tagil tray: history, description and interesting facts

In our age of rapid progress and high speeds, the development of electronics and high-speed Internet, more and more citizens need a break from the hustle and bustle. The desire for self-determination as a nation directs thoughts to studying the customs and foundations of our ancestors. The desire for realization in doing something raises the popularity of handicrafts. Returning to the origins, we turn to folk crafts. One of the most amazing objects of primordially Russian traditions is the Taghil tray.

Historical origins

More than three hundred years is the history of this folk craft. It goes to the villages and villages of the Urals. When the first iron tray appeared, decorated with painting, it is impossible to say. Somewhere in the depths of centuries, the names of the masters who gave rise to real art, to the craft that glorified Great Russia, were lost.

The official history of the Tagil tray begins with the steel mills of the Demidov family. In the middle of the XVIII century, these industrialists began casting steel in Nizhny Tagil (1725), Nevyansk and Vyisk (1722). By the seventies of the same century, according to the chronicles, the fishery was expanding and forming separate professions: smith, varnisher, ovschik.

The entire XVIII century of the development of the fishery is the age of the Khudoyarovs' painters. Icon painters in several generations, the brothers Vavila and Fedor, moved the key techniques of painting, varnishing and decoration of icons in decorating objects of everyday life, trays, chests, utensils. It is to these masters that the Tagil tray is obliged to the technique of painting "cyrus" - the golden base is generously poured with a colored background. After hardening with a thin tool to gold, remove the top layer, getting unusual patterns. Painters are also credited with the invention of a "crystal varnish", unusually transparent and heat resistant. Painted Demidovy trays and utensils, sent to the palaces of the two capitals of Russia.

The heyday of the fishery

The end of the XVIII - the beginning of the XIX century - the heyday of the fishery. It is called the school age of the Demidovs, which we'll talk about a little later. Demidovs moved the individual family craft into a professional, industrial channel. Warehouses painted boxes, rolls, trays, chests and other household items made in the "mountain town", as they called Nizhny Tagilsk, went to the Irbit and Makaryevskaya fairs, and from there to Nizhny Novgorod, Central Asia and Europe. It was the Golden Age of the development of the fishery.

Decline and Revival

Since the middle of the XIX century, with the onset of the era of industrialization, the recession of folk crafts and almost all handicrafts begins. Accelerating pace of life forced to give up fine manual work, replacing it with simplistic, extremely stylized forms. Hand forging gives way to industrial, exquisite original parts replace the stencil.

By the twenties of the 20th century, the life of the fishery was preserved in a few artel masters, such as Proletary and Krasnaya Zarya. Skilful handmade trays were unclaimed in Soviet Russia, so they are sent to the Middle East and China.

The only island of the Tagil trays is the workshop at the Nizhnetagilsky enamelware factory.

Since the 90s of the last century, since the era of perestroika and the development of small business, a slow and steady recovery of the forgotten fishery begins. The revival of the unique hand-painted originated the artels and cooperatives of the masters.

School of Demidovs

About the Demidovs school it is necessary to tell separately, because it gave us the dynasties of such masters as the Dubasnikovs, Chausovs, Kaigorodovs and Peresolovs.

The Demidov businessmen were well aware that the main thing in the fishery was the personnel. It was with the goal of training and training professional personnel that they founded in 1806 a school where they invited to teach the basics of painting the graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts V. I. Albychev.

In school for four years, only boys studied, starting at age 12. But production still lacked personnel. Then they began to take girls and women to school. It is interesting that the Demidovs, as an incentive for the desire to learn "to write strongly," provided for the encouragement of women in the form of handkerchiefs. Gradually, the creation of painted trays goes into women's hands, which is the case today.

The school had a tremendous impact on the development of the fishery as a direction of fine arts. The Tagil palette of trays gradually grows with their traditions.

Soon, the authentic Tagil rose begins to "blossom" on products - a symbolic flower that for many years has become the embodiment of the fishery.

Taghil tray - a trays, paintings, with expressive sharpened details and the purest painting, revealing mythological and historical plot lines.

Gradually, the development of painting on a multifaceted riveted form. Figured sheet iron, spider patterns and the finest elements created by the hands of blacksmiths, became the basis for artistic painting. This created the Tagil tray.

Special Tagil painting was also developed - the technique of a double brushstroke. At the same time, the main directions in the story lines were formed.

The secret of varnish

The secret of lacquer dynasty Khudoyarovyh consists in the proportions dissolved in turpentine kopal, hemp oil and turpentine conifers. In contrast to the eastern cold varnishing, a method of fast hot (at a temperature of 300 degrees) varnishing was used. The composition added lead oxide and manganese - the varnish became transparent and refreshed inks. The secret is not solved.

What is a Tagil tray?

The trays were made and continue to be made in the workshops. Technology is changing, but today handmade creative work is the basis of the fishery.

The shape of the tray is made by the method of stamping and is covered twice with soil, and then with black enamel. After drying, the workpiece passes into the hands of the artist, then the ornamentalist. After painting, the product is varnished.

Modern fishes

They create works of art in the Nizhny Tagil center of folk crafts and crafts. Trademarks are legally protected by patents. The Tagil tray invariably evokes the interest of foreign masters and collectors. Masters take part in exhibitions and auctions in Russia and far beyond its borders. Museums of Nizhny Tagil and Yekaterinburg are proud of the rich collection of Tagil trays that were exhibited in the US, France, Poland and other countries.

What is Taghil tray, today know far beyond our homeland. The works of Khudoyarov and Dubasnikov masters are the pearls of expositions of Russian museums and private collections. Tagil products were presented to the princes and monarchs. Original Tagil "lacquer" painting is a unique example of folk craft that has survived to this day and continues to amaze and delight connoisseurs of original art.