ЦВЕТЫ ЛИПОВКИ: АРДАТОВСКАЯ ФОЛЕЖНАЯ ИКОНА СОВЕТСКОГО ВРЕМЕНИ

Abstract

The article is about the tradition of creating handmade icons with foil rizas in the village Lipovka, located in the Ardatovsky district in the south-west of the Nizhny Novgorod region. The focus is on the genesis of the “flower tradition” of decorating Ardatov icons and on its comparison with other artistic styles in the Nizhny Novgorod Southwest. Also, they study the memories of local residents about Raisa Vasilyevna Serova the craftswoman icon-painter from the village of Lipovka. Cultural and historical origins of the Ardatov tradition of decorative and applied crafts. A hypothesis has been put forward about the presence of the Mordovian ritual substrate in the traditions of decorating foil icons in 20th century. To substantiate it, data from the more eastern districts of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (Diveyevsky and Pervomaisky), as well as from the Republic of Mordovia are presented. According to these data the same practices of decorations with bright paper flowers were preserved in relation to pre-Christian ritual artifacts in the wedding rites of the local Mordva-Erzya (wreaths and ceremonial pies) until the end of the 20th century It is assumed that such more archaic ritual practices of the Mordva could be transferred to Christian ritual artifacts after they adopted Christianity in the 18th century. The authors describe the artistic techniques of the Ardatov icon tradition, characterize the artistic manner of a craftswoman from the Ardatov village of Lipovka and describe the religious landscape of that village during the Soviet era.