Felt Ornamental Patterns within of the Ethnic Worldview (a Case Study of Kalmykia’s Museum Collections)

Abstract

Introduction. The article deals with felting arts that constitute an indigenous phenomenon of Mongolic cultures. The study basically stems from the understanding that in terms of social development prospects traditional arts act as genetically related predecessors of modern ones. This is the reason there is certain interest in origins and development trends of ethnic traditions that figuratively mirror people’s mentality. The work focuses on the artistic vision of ancestors, their spatial picture of the world. Within the framework, it is urgent enough to identify peculiarities of worldviews developed by Mongolic nomads — the source materials for the first time ever being Kalmyk artistic felting patterns. The study aims to analyze ornamental patterns that serve as core structural elements to create decorative felting compositions; to introduce into scientific discourse corresponding felting-related materials contained in the Museum of the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS. Methods. The interdisciplinary research methodology is predetermined by the comparative analysis of ornamental patterns aiming to reveal local features of Kalmyk felting arts. The traditional visual thinking, its symbolic fundamentals are investigated within the framework of art history and related academic disciplines, such as museology, ethnology, and culturology. Results. In terms of expressive means, the examined ornamental patterns manifest logical features of the ancestors’ visual thinking, the former being arranged along elements of the nomadic world. The archetypes repeatedly inherited within the traditional ethnic system constitute certain peculiarities that form the folk Kalmyk applied arts style typical for the traditional artistic handicraft artifacts — including felting ones — contained in the Zaya Pandita Museum of Traditional Culture (KalmSC of RAS) and other museums of the republic. The museum’s funds constituted by a number of nomadic lifestyle collections, including those of the Buddhist cult, serve as a source to explore folk decorative and applied arts, the latter being viewed within the system of Kalmyk artistic culture. The typical ornamental patterns of Kalmyk felting works are geometrical compositions characterized by distinct linear properties and laconic color schemes. The symmetry of ornamental decorative elements is underlined by respective fixed centers. Every certain quilting has top-and-down, central, left and right dimensions. Geometrically reversible ornamental patterns are also typical for Kalmyk decorative felting works. These are the spatial parameters of decorative felting items in the people’s traditional culture. Conclusions. The paper identifies the archetypes of the traditional worldview of Kalmyk nomads and respective local peculiarities manifested in decorative felting arts. The common ethno-genetic backgrounds of Turko-Mongols includes certain ethnic peculiarities that take corresponding forms within spatial parameters of ornamental felting patterns.