Decoration of wooden objects in the decorative and applied arts of Kalmykia: traditions and modernity

The study aims to identify the characteristic features of products of Kalmyk traditional artistic craft in examples of decorative and applied arts of Kalmykia in the 20th - early 21st centuries, and to analyze the facts of the use of new methods and technologies in the artistic processing of wood. The complex of researched materials consisted of wooden household items of Kalmyks from the collections of the National Museum of the Republic of Kalmykia named after N. N. Palmov (Elista), the Russian Ethnographic Museum (St. Petersburg), the ROSIZO Museum and Exhibition Center (Moscow), published photographic materials on the topic under study, as well as items from the personal archives of artists. The author introduces previously unpublished works of Kalmykian artists into scholarly discourse. In the study, mainly historical-comparative and structural-functional methods were used. For the first time, the main features of the “Kalmyk style” in the decorative and applied arts of Kalmykia were identified. The main technical methods of working with wood (turning, grinding, tinting, shallow carving, painting) were identified. The predominance of a strict, laconic form in the appearance of household items was noted, which were most often decorated with non-accent carvings with a slight in-depth contour, engraving and flat carvings. An analogy was revealed between the technologies and methods of decorating wooden objects among the Avars from Untsukul (Dagestan) and the masters of applied art of Kalmykia. It was established that Kalmykian original wooden works of decorative and applied arts in the late 20th - early 21st centuries are characterized by an end-to-end volumetric-relief carving technique and a sculptural approach to artistic design. The author notes that in the 21st century Kalmykian applied artists are increasingly using the innovative method of laser wood engraving and cutting. The combination of bas-relief techniques and notched-through carving, under the influence of the style of Buddhist iconography, reveals the originality and uniqueness of Kalmyk decorative and applied arts. The use of an integrated approach in studying the peculiarities of the methods of creating and decorating objects of the applied arts of Kalmykia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 21st centuries revealed the presence of signs of the traditional culture of nomadic herders in the works of modern professional artists.