Exhibition "Toys Sit on the Branches"

Since the beginning of the 19th century, in the village of Khludnevo in the Kaluga Governorate (now Duminichsky District of Kaluga Oblast), from which the craft takes its name, toys were modeled from clay.

The fairgrounds rang out with the shrill, many-voiced whistles of children, who blew into clay skates, roosters and other oddly shaped whistle-toys. The themes of the Khludnevo toy have deep roots that lie in ancient Slavic cults.

There is no reliable answer as to how the Khludnevo toy appeared. Oral folk tradition connects the manufacture of the toy with the arrival here in the 19th century of several peasant families won by the local landowner at cards; they brought pottery craft to Khludnevo, which quickly took root here thanks to deposits of good clay.

Kaluga local historian N.M. Maslov, who left a description of Khludnevo toys made in the late 19th — early 20th centuries and not preserved to our days, links the production of the toys with the ancient folk festivities called "Yarilki", widely celebrated in the Kaluga region. The association of the Khludnevo toy with this festival, dedicated to the pagan god Yarila — which gradually transformed from a calendar folk rite into fairground celebrations — as well as the varied composition of the toys, testify to different stages of its development.

Making Khludnevo toys went alongside the production of clay householdware. Men extracted and processed the clay, throwing various vessels. Women created clay figures in various directions: ritual and protective, play and household. At fairs these items were distributed to nearby large settlements: Zhizdra, Sukhinichi, Bryansk, Lyudinovo and Dyatkovo.

Not separated or singled out from the pottery craft as a whole and not becoming a subject of purely artistic creation, the Kaluga clay toy was not exhibited at the first toy exhibitions in Russia (1890, 1909) and remained original and folk. The knowledge and skills for creating the Khludnevo toy were passed down from generation to generation, from mother to daughter. In times of popular unrest and war the production of the toys was halted.

In the mid-20th century the Khludnevo craft became famous across the country. This event is an important part of the history of the development of clay toys. Over time transport routes and trade turnover developed widely. The Khludnevo toy began to spread over long distances. Much attention was paid to studying the native land, its history and culture. A great contribution to the spread of the toy was made in 1987 by A.N. Frumkin and D.P. Dundukova, head of the museum sector of the "House of Masters." With her participation exhibitions and displays of works by craftswomen of different generations and family dynasties were organized; the history of the Khludnevo toy is described in G. Blinov's work "Khludnevo Whistles-Ringatoys."

The traditional palette of Khludnevo toys includes four main colors: red, blue, yellow, green.

At first mineral pigments were used, various clays — engobes — mixed with egg and milk. Most often paints were obtained from flowers and plants:
Orange — from spurge and St. John's wort; Light yellow — from chamomile flowers; Yellow — from buckwheat and onion skins; Dark blue — from cornflowers; Green — from black rye.

Initially painting was done with straws and sticks. In the 19th century aniline dyes such as fuchsin began to be used — and paint was applied with quills and brushes. In general, ornamental motifs, solar signs (symbols of the Sun) and fertility symbols go back to the ancient Slavic ornamental complex.

Only in the Khludnevo toy craft does the mysterious image of the Rogal appear. Rogal is a mythical creature resembling a little devil. There is no exact meaning or significance attached to this character. In the Khludnevo folk imagination Rogal is an image of a certain force, a house spirit living behind the stove who helps with domestic chores. In Khludnevo toy art one can find Rogal figures holding a bird in their hands, or in toys where a woman holds him like a child. Sometimes among the clay toys the Rogal appears as an animal.

Whistle-toys were the most popular goods at the fairs and were intended for children. Whistles were distinguished by the number of legs: legless and two-legged. Most were made in a rolled form (without legs); they could not be placed on any surface and were difficult to use in play. More complex whistles with two legs could be set on a surface as figures and used in compositional games with several other similar toys. There were also gudukhi — large whistles with a low tone. The heads of the whistles tend to be ambivalent: from one angle it is a bird with raised wings, from another it turns into the head of a horned animal, and from a third — into a flower. Whistles at fairs could be sold by masters who had permission to do so, and many Khludnevo craftswomen did not have it, so it was more convenient to quickly put away the whistles than the compositions.

The Khludnevo clay toy features many different birds — rooster, hen, duck, lark, cuckoo, nightingale, goose, dove. They appear both as individual toys (whistles) and in narrative images (the tree of life with birds, a woman with a bird in her hands, etc.). There was a belief that the soul (especially the female soul) could be a bird. Russian people believed that under the influence of a shock or witchcraft a girl (or young woman) could temporarily be reborn as a bird. By whistling with bird-whistles people drove away evil spirits. Large images of roosters decorated window sills in houses.

Plant motifs are often found in the Khludnevo toy: flowers, leaves, branches, trees. The image of the tree deserves special attention. Among the craftswomen's works several types can be distinguished: one variant of the tree has legs; another variant is an image of a woman (baba) on whose head a bird's nest is placed; in a third — the top of the tree represents the head of a sorceress-woman, and there are also naturalistic ones — with long branches-leaves sticking out in all directions.

Tree figures also differed in the way elements were distributed:
Carousel-tree — elements were distributed over the entire surface of the toy, in a spiral, which made each side of the figure a front. Conventionally, in such toys the front side was marked by the direction of the head of the animal sitting on top.

Two-dimensional, where the entire pictorial series unfolded in one plane, and the sculpture had one main front side facing the viewer.

D.P. Dundukova gives an expressive interpretation of the toy-trees:
"Maria Vasilievna Samoshenkova's tree contained all the elements: the cosmos — at the top sits the 'charm-holder' (a woman with a cup) and sends rain to the earth. Lower down — the air — birds in nests. And at the bottom, by the roots — the earth — a bear sits and plays the accordion."

But, according to A.N. Frumkin, the images of the tree and the woman-tree in the Khludnevo clay toy were formed relatively recently — in the late 1960s — early 1970s. Their reflection of the world tree is obviously connected with traditional painting, embroidery and oral folklore, directly going back to the archaic roots of Russian paganism.

Technique and subtleties of making the toy

Local blue clay was used for the toys. It was mined from deep clay wells that were dug in winter. During thaws and in summer the wells would fill with water. Clay was harvested to last until the next winter. The clay was freeze-treated, aged, and mixed. Before work each piece of blue clay was kneaded by the craftsperson's hands. In the postwar period the production of Khludnevo toys was difficult. Women could not dig wells, and there were not enough able-bodied men. Most of the kilns for firing had been destroyed. But the making of small whistles continued. Clay began to be collected in places where it emerged on the surface. Unlike clay taken from a deep well, this contained not only pebbles and roots but also inclusions of limestone, which affected the plasticity of the raw material and the strength of the finished work. During this period clay was gathered in small amounts and was not aged, but went straight into production.

The second stage — modeling. The blue clay was kneaded to remove impurities and expel air bubbles. Coiling long ropes or coils from fresh clay. Such coils were applied to the surface of still-wet toys, slightly pressed and flattened, becoming like ribbons. The ends of these ribbons were smoothed onto the toy's surface with wet fingers. These details typically formed elements of the figure: parts of headdresses, belts, collars, etc. In the same way a small ball of clay was attached and pressed into a patty. Thus buttons, belt buckles, earrings, etc. were formed. Finally, holes were made in the drying clay. These marked eyes, nostrils on the faces of people and animals, folds of clothing, necklaces and the like. The modeled toy dried for several days in the open air, and only after that could it be sent to the kiln.

The next stage of creating the toy is firing. Large batches of toys were gathered for firing and loaded into earthen kilns, where the toys were fired at high temperature for about 3–4 hours. In the postwar period toys began to be fired in small homemade "kilns", in small batches. Items were placed inside a homemade kiln and covered from above with small shards from old pottery. The firing process began with heating. First kindling and small twigs were lit, then small logs were burned. After sufficiently heating the items in the kiln, large logs were loaded. Firing required constant attention from the craftsperson. If the item was overfired or smoked, it acquired a gray or yellowish color. In that case the surfaces of the toys were whitened and painting began.

Initially toys were painted with chicken feathers or softened wooden sticks. Later brushes began to be used. For paints the masters preferred fabric dyes, fuchsin. Later they began to use watercolors, but they did not like gouache. The basis for the paints was a chicken egg. Clay shards were used for mixing. A batch of toys was lined up and colors were applied in turn — first one color, then another, and so on. Significant elements of the item were highlighted: the muzzle, ears, horns of an animal; the comb, beak, tail and wings of a bird; the hands, contours and elements of clothing on human figures.