Wood, Stone, Thread: Aesthetics of the Most Ancient Archetypes in Modern Decorative and Applied Art

Nikiforova Anastasiia ORCID: 0000-0002-8410-9446 PhD in Philosophy Associate professor, Department of Aesthetics and Ethics, Institute of Philosophy of a Human, Herzen State Pedagogical University 19118, Russia, Saint Petersburg, ul. Nab.r. Moika, 48 zuru-s@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Voronova Natlia ORCID: 0000-0003-0728-757X PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy, History, Political Science and Law of the State Social and Humanitarian University 30 Zelenaya str., Kolomna, Moscow region, 140411, Russia voronova-ni@mail.ru Other publications by this author

 Artistic processing of stone, thread and wood has accompanied the history of mankind since ancient times – without it it is impossible to imagine the history of material culture.

  From ancient weaving to weaving, from rooting to carving, from drilling to cutting, from natural needs for protection to the pursuit of luxury, the evolution of the processing of natural materials is complex and diverse. Manual processing of stone and wood, weaving of cords from linen or nettle thread, weaving – all these processes, like almost any work in traditional culture, were accompanied by household magic. Objects were decorated with special signs and became amulets, for example, as belts woven on a berdo in Slavic cultures.  Homemade wooden idols and stone deities are known to ethnographers all over the world, and the mythological meaning of traditional patterns on canvases or in wood carving has already become the subjects of scientific research along with oral folk art. A large volume of scientific literature is devoted not only to the history of art, but also to the semantics, genesis and ontology of myth and mythological consciousness itself, which is significant for understanding ancient cultural traditions and modern trends in their interpretation. Myth today is understood not as a fairy tale, fiction or fantasy, but as a force that forms "on the basis of the sacralization of this information, a certain image of oneself and the surrounding world, systematizing spatial-temporal connections and value orientations" ^{[1, p. 13]}

The analysis of modern decorative and applied art allows us to distinguish several directions in the decorative processing of stone, wood, fibers:

The first demonstrates technological and optimized processing techniques characteristic of the civilization of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here – furniture, fabrics and jewelry of factory production, mass circulation and original or high-quality products that do not go beyond the generally accepted stylistics, or imitate the styles of bygone eras. Who can say that a furniture set made of Karelian birch in the Empire or Baroque style is not in demand by today's buyer who dreams of living like a king? The same can be said about the jewelry collections of fashionable European houses and jewelry holdings: precious stones were valued both in ancient Rome and today. With a huge number of styles, trends in subject and environmental design, materials processing technologies, most of the products are devoid of any sacred wash (with the exception of special ritual objects) and are purely functional ^[2-4].

The second is the preservation and development of traditional folk crafts related to the processing of fabric, wood and stone. For example, currently in Russia there is an Association of Folk Crafts, uniting more than 200 organizations in 48 regions. Among the numerous resources promoting folk traditions are the "Guide to Russian Crafts", "Folk Arts and Crafts of Russia", the portal of the Association of Folk Arts and Crafts of Russia, the resource "Handicraft of Russia" and others. Some of these crafts are flourishing, some need support and development ^[5].  However, modern production, while preserving the stylistics of objects that have survived for centuries, transforming or updating it, does not endow these objects – lace or wooden products – with symbolic meaning. They continue to exist as a tradition, as one of the directions of decorative and applied art, as a commercial project.

In world practice, there is a third direction – the reconstruction of the traditions of the past associated with weaving, wood and stone processing. Examples are not only the activities of museums for the preservation of ethnographic heritage, but also numerous workshops and interest clubs reviving forgotten traditions – wooden toys, weaving, embroidery, etc., the practice of manufacturing which was interrupted, has not been preserved or has not become as recognizable as Rostov finifty, Gzhel porcelain or Khokhloma painting. Ethnographers, local historians, and people familiar with the cultural history of their region often become amateur reenactors ^[6].  In this regard, the activity and creativity of our contemporary cabinetmaker David Esterly is very indicative: at one time he was struck by the beauty and elegance of the work of Grinling Gibbons, became interested in wood carving and became one of the best specialists in the history of artistic wood processing of the 18th century, as well as a unique master who mastered the techniques and technologies characteristic of that era.  Russia also has enough of its own craftsmen who respect old traditions and do not agree that folk art objects deserve to be only museum exhibits. However, there are not so many adherents of this activity and the objects created by them can rather be attributed to the author's decorative and applied art, copying or reviving any craft.

The fourth direction is connected with the revival of interest not so much in craft (weaving, wood processing, stone-cutting practice), as in myth. The civilization of the 20th century, which passed under the banner of atheism, the struggle with the past and the unrestrained desire for new technologies, where there is no place for manual labor, having made a circle, in the 21st century revived interest in the archaic: "the mythological is seen both as an indispensable attribute of the individual's consciousness, and as the "genetic memory" of the culture of ethnic groups, influencing their socio-cultural installations. In addition, the myth exists not only as a separate form of consciousness, but also (outside of its own existence) as a sacred component of religion, morality, i.e. as the program information of the entire ethno-cultural tradition" ^[7]. The discovery of these deep connections of mythological consciousness and modern culture becomes one of the tasks of contemporary art.  The subject of decorative and applied art is "a special form in which human memory exists. It is at this value level that the subject "conceptualization" of a thing takes place, the anthropomorphism of which is correlated not only with the needs of the body, but has ideological grounds, it turns out to be correlated with the structures of individual consciousness" ^[8]. In line with this direction, the study of archetypes in the works of modern authors was conducted.

Stone, thread and tree are further considered in two hypostases – both as an image and as a material. The images of stone, wood, thread are archetypal and date back to ancient times. As materials, they are interesting from the point of view of non-traditional processing methods that implement new author's approaches to transcription of these materials for the embodiment of artistic ideas. The evolution of images and the evolution of methods of processing the materials themselves are most clearly presented in the table (Table 1), where an attempt is made to systematize the variety of archetypes associated with thread, wood and stone, and also the cyclical appeal to the images of antiquity, but already in modern art, owning new technologies for processing these materials. The list of authors (domestic and foreign) presented below is far from exhaustive. It is indicative from the point of view of artists' conscious appeal to the theme of archetypes in culture ^[9], as well as an innovative attitude to materials for the implementation of their ideas.  At the same time, the same tendencies in relation to the material and its processing are found in the works of American, European, Russian and Asian authors.

Table 1

Modern civilization has given fundamentally new opportunities for the processing of wood, stone, the production of threads and fabrics. The invention of synthetic materials, artificial stone and veneer, the development of high-tech machines and tools for their processing gave craftsmen new opportunities to implement ideas, removed previously existing restrictions related to the technical features of materials, reduced the time and labor costs for their processing. The widespread dissemination of technologies and information about crafts and decorative and applied arts has allowed more people to master different types of applied activities, making it more accessible. The openness of technology, knowledge, and the availability of materials gave impetus to the development of the author's unique techniques and images in decorative and applied art.

The search for ideal forms for the embodiment of the material manifestation of the phenomena of the other world – spirits, gods, energies, sacred knowledge – throughout the history of culture has led to the discovery of the same patterns of being reflected in the images of the world mountain / tree, thread of life, etc., which we are well aware of from ancient legends and myths of peoples the world. Modern authors ^[11] go their own way, but some common deep patterns of consciousness and culture lead them to the same images that existed thousands of years ago. At the same time, the works created by artists, on the one hand, are desacialized, since they do not refer to a real prototype, whose presence or absence in our reality is not even discussed by the author:  no one would think of looking for the world mountain, offering sacrifices to the moirs, or looking for the tree of life in the garden of Eden. On the other hand, the authors appeal to these archetypal images as phenomena of culture and consciousness, which is characteristic of post–culture, which uses forms existing in culture and art to create new meanings. For example, in the work of Sergei Falkin "Burkhan" [fig.1] we see "a mythopoetic image of the guardian of the area [...]. This is a work from a series of large sculptures dedicated to the traditions and culture of Transbaikalia — the native land of the master. Everything in it is "saturated" with time: on the one hand, the image is a well—known and revered spirit from antiquity, on the other, a tree trunk that nature and time have carefully preserved, turning into a solid stone. Small geodes formed in the veins and cavities, shimmering in the light. The features of the well-chosen material have become an expressive artistic means, in which the author's idea is accentuated by outlined details. He appears as the face of an elder — wise and all-seeing, in the stump of a centuries-old relict tree" ^[12]. 

The image of the filament as a symbol of life is the origin not only of ancient cultures. Installations by contemporary artist Alena Kogan, created from plastic ropes and paintings on mythological themes such as "the Scheme of the birth of the new world, "Wings / Fall", "Break", are a vivid illustration of the fact that "in modern culture is the desire to organize and structure is reflected in the processes of hypernormal of reality, reflecting it in the system of non-reflexive imagery, claiming almost mythical properties of the inviolability of human values and build a system of illusions, take for an undoubted reality." ^[13]. Colored thread sculptures by Gabriel Dawe and Sean McGinnis record attempts by artists to transform interior and exterior spaces, to capture the process of transforming the world to show its structure, hidden in normal times by a host of items. Thread objects, devoid of objectivity is the essence of the internal laws of existence, his mathematical, fractal, three-dimensional formula, making visible the invisible, the tangible – intangible. The huge space of the threads created, like the drawings in the air, the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. They cover how plants, rooms, halls, ceilings and walls, purses, furniture, boats and other items that fall within the scope of their impact. The artist binds these rastitelnojadnye installation with metaphors of travel, of course, endless ties in the universe, memories, emotions. Work Studio Ball-Nogues (Los-Angeles) series String Theory directly refer to the theory of the universe (the theory of super strings): their structures connected computer technology, traditional Indonesian weaving methods of weaving, original colours, creating visual effects, changing the perception of the installation depending on the perspective of her.

If we turn to the image of a tree in world culture, we find there the World tree, dryads, ancestral trees, burial, wooden idols, and amulets, where the very essence of the tree spirits embodied in the material, and the process of growth and development of seed is the essence of life itself. Form of the mythologizing endless. For example, the art of bonsai for centuries to store the principles of composition, aesthetic patterns ^[14], in the works of Kawabe Takeo (Japan) acquires a new reading as the most important master believes does not follow the Canon, but the opportunity to hear the voice of the wood and give it a form, which it prefers. "The essence of craft culture that is, to manifest the life contained in the material. Beauty is not something that is created by man, it is life itself" ^[15]. On the other hand, are archaic images can get unexpected interpretation and application of non-standard coloration, becoming works of art, art objects, landscape sculptures. In the collection of N. Luganskogo "Chernobog" we see that "time and space are interchangeable categories" ^{[16,p. 128]}: in the contemporary art objects are fixed mythological images of the past, bringing the viewer not only in a different era, but in a different space, where there is a place the gods and spirits of nature [Fig. 2 ].

Woodcarving hardest level typical for the Russian tradition and European and Asian countries: they include such authors as Kronid Gogolev, Kiril Tomans ^[17], Randall Rosenthal, IEP tubs drill, Zheng Chungu, Hsu Tung Han, each of these artists has created his own unique style, revealing all the possibilities of wood as a material ^[18]. Some authors follow the traditions of the craft and canons and stories of native culture, some create something new. And conversations with nature and the creation of a perfume designated Keith Jennings, corneoplastic Nagato Iwasaki as a special types of landscape art, frozen allow to contemplate the beauty of motion in combination with the natural forms created by nature itself.

 In the stone-cutting art, many domestic and foreign authors, such as Vladimir Putrin, the Henn family from Germany and others, have achieved high quality stone processing. Some of the stonecutters preserve and develop the stylistics and achievements of their predecessors, creating, for example, flower compositions that have been popular since the end of the 19th century ^[19].  Fundamentally new heights and results are achieved by those masters who do not try to repeat the aesthetic ideals of the past (like, for example, imitators of K. Faberge's work) ^[20], but feeling well the possibilities of the material itself, subordinate it to a more significant idea – the expression of plasticity, movement, feeling – that will be valuable for the modern viewer and more interesting than just diamonds in a frame. And again, the idea is realized here – to show, first of all, the beauty of the stone itself, to reveal its most expressive form, in which it will reveal itself in the fullness of texture and color. Even in the "Treatise on the Creation of Gardens" (Japan, Heian era 790-1192), the master creator of the garden is recommended to "follow the will of the stones" and place them as they themselves would like to lie ^[21].

Stone-cutting authors such as, for example, Sergey Falkin, Alexander Veselovsky have shown that precious and semi-precious stones deserve more than to be cut and inserted into a necklace. The purity of color, clarity of texture and their correspondence to the created artistic image clearly demonstrates that "the works of art express the axiosystem that permeates the entire culture and underlies it" ^[22], namely, the desire to show the beauty and strength of the material itself, its self–sufficiency in the ability to convey the author's intention. In this case, there is no need for pretentiousness of forms, "overcoming the material", rather the opposite – the master's hand only reveals the spirit, emotion, movement that are contained in the stone itself. Respect for the material, the attitude towards it as a living being leads to the creation of bright works of art that have their own character. And it does not matter whether they are made of precious stone (as in the works of Alexei Antonov), or of ordinary granite (as in Hirotoshi Ito) ^[23].

 Following the will of the material, revealing its aesthetic potential, we also see in the works of modern authors, where fabric, wood, stone are intertwined in a bizarre way [Fig. 3]. In the field of jewelry creation, an interesting example is such a creative credo as the desire to see and capture the "beauty of imperfection": hand-woven bundles of natural linen organically they are combined with wooden and amber details, reminiscent of jewelry and magical charms of the ancient Slavs [Fig. 4]. They "keep a secret", conduct their dialogue, freeze in time, fix unusual "emotions of nature", open the veil to the hidden world of thread and wood. 

On the one hand, art reflects the interest of post-culture in the archaic, its heritage and connection with the unconscious, on the other hand, it transforms archetypal mythological images, giving them a new meaning ^[24]. Deprived of plot, removed from their native historical and cultural environment, images of the world tree, the spirit of stone, threads become not dead museum exhibits or heroes of articles in a mythological encyclopedia, but living objects resurrected by modern technologies and clothed in new flesh. Ancient archetypes do not lose their original meaning, but, reviving in the hands of the master, they become an actual tool for cognition of the world, its hidden laws and possibilities, offering the viewer tangible, visible, sensual images of the world order. The aesthetic perception of reality and the artistic embodiment of the constants of being have always been and are on the verge of magic, meditation and enlightenment, when behind the rough forms of stone, thread, wood, the author and the viewer do not feel the abstract world of ideas, but touch the ancient foundations of the structure of the material world, can feel their spirit and vitality.