The Chazen Museum of Art's latest exhibition, Russian Lacquer Boxes: A Narrative Tradition,"" is one of boundless imagination and miniature proportions. The gallery showcases 60 densely ornamented and surprisingly small lacquer boxes, each hand-painted with scenes from Russian fairy tales and religious stories. It gives viewers the chance to experience the rich tradition of Russian storytelling in a beautiful and unexpected way.
Extremely intricate and refined, lacquered box painting has been an important art form in Russia since the early 20th century and recalls the age-old art of iconography in both style and content. Each box is made from papier-mà ¢ché, covered with lacquer to give a hard shiny coat and then painted. The paintings, like their iconographic predecessors, tell detailed stories through depictions of characters and symbols. Farsighted gallery-goers be forewarned, however, that these scenes are depicted on very modestly sized boxes, the smallest of which measures no more than two square inches.
Crafted by highly skilled artisans using single haired paintbrushes and powerful magnifying glasses, the figures are impeccably detailed with eyelashes, individual strands of hair and even veins. Pictures of selected boxes that have been blown up to more than ten times their original size hang on the walls of the gallery. Amazingly, these painstaking details are not compromised at all with their increase in size, and remain just as crisp and exact in the enlargements.
The impressive scale of these works are not their only enticing attribute. Their whimsical subject matter and intriguing compositions give them significance beyond simply acting as decorative objects. Figures depicted with long, russified faces and tapering legs, horses with curving necks and small faces, and woodland creatures with human expressions are present on almost every box. The paintings' backgrounds lack traditional perspective. They flow around the subjects to create carefully drafted, dynamic compositions. These anatomical and spatial quirks impart the images with a charming folk art quality.
Even if the depicted stories are unfamiliar, the characters and scenery can be pieced together to create an original narrative in the viewers mind. Archetypes such as beautiful princesses and brave heroes conjure memories of childhood stories regardless of the viewers cultural background. ""Russian Lacquer Boxes: A Narrative Tradition"" is a distinct and fascinating, if tiny, window into Russian folk art. Anyone looking to broaden their cultural horizons and stimulate their imagination is sure to enjoy this show.
