The Hall of Wooden Sculpture occupies the best place in the Perm Art Gallery. Under the dome. The building of the gallery is the former Transfiguration Cathedral. In Soviet times, the cathedral was rebuilt as an art gallery. Probably, it was this cathedral that saved. They did not begin to adapt it to any technical needs, they did not begin to demolish it. They simply divided the huge inner space of the temple into three floors. Built partitions between floors and stairs.
And thanks to the gallery, a huge, probably twenty meters high wooden gilded iconostasis was preserved. Interfloor ceilings were built so that they did not reach the iconostasis. If the building of the cathedral had been given for something else, then the unique iconostasis would certainly have been destroyed. The redevelopment of the cathedral was done according to the project of the architect N.A. Shvarev. Perhaps it is to him that we owe the fact that the iconostasis has been preserved. However, I will write about the iconostasis later separately.

Opposite the hall of Perm sculpture is the largest upper part of the iconostasis.

You probably know how Permian wooden sculpture was born. Just in case, I'll remind you. Before the arrival of the Russians, the Zyryans, the ancestors of modern people Komi. They were idolaters. Their idols were wooden. "Cut out with a cutout," as a Russian monk said about it.
But then the Russians came to this region. Moreover, they first came to the North of the Perm Territory. Why north is understandable. To the south were lands occupied by Tatars and Bashkirs. At that time, the Russians were not yet capable of defeating these warlike peoples. And along with military people and merchants, Christian missionaries came to the Perm region. The first of these was Stephen of Perm, a contemporary and associate of St. Sergius. True Perm, he was only in name. He did not reach the lands where the current Perm Territory is now located. The pulpit of St. Stephen was on the territory of the modern Komi Republic.

Perm the Great or Parma in ancient times was called this whole wooded region. And its center was the city. In ancient times, it was called the Great Perm - Cherdyn. The very same town with the name Perm was built much later than Cherdyn. It was founded by the same Vasily Tatishchev at about the same time as Yekaterinburg.
Alexei Ivanov has such an episode in "Heart of Parma". Bishop Jonah arrived in Cherdyn. And I saw that Christianity here, on the edge of the world, was strongly mixed with paganism. And he ordered to burn all "Christian idols" as not meeting the canons. These very "idols" were Permian sculptures. The novel takes place in the 15th century. So according to Ivanov, they already existed then.

The real, unimagined first Permian bishops were wiser. And they didn't burn anything. If the people of Parma believe in Christ, even if "cut out" means so be it. The tradition of carving sacred images from wood became stronger and took root in the northern Perm region for a long time. For centuries. Although later, already in the nineteenth century, the church authorities tried to fight the remnants of paganism in the form of non-canonical sculpture. But this was not successful.
All sculptures from the exposition of the Perm Art Gallery were made between the 17th and 19th centuries.

The face of the Savior, carved by an unknown artist, expresses sorrow and suffering. The faces of the Permian sculptures resemble the high cheekbones of the Zyrians themselves. I remember when Alya and I stood on the pier in Berezniki and waited for the ship to the Komi Okrug, Alya spoke.
- Look at the people around.
And sure enough, many of them were subtly different from us.
Christ is even dressed in the national clothes of the Komi-Permyaks, a blue robe - shabur.

And here the face of the Savior was made more of a Russian type.

Here in the face of Christ there is something Tatar. In these statues - all the peoples inhabiting the Urals.

I wanted to find that statue that was in the frame of the film "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession." Remember where the heroes run away from the guards. Bunsha sat in a niche in the wall opposite the wooden figure of Christ. He sat down and also accurately propped up his hand with his head. The archers ran past and did not notice anything suspicious. Now I look at the pictures - it seems that this statue is not there.

The statues were brought to Perm from different villages and towns in the north of the Perm Territory. In the museums of the North itself - in Solikamsk, Berezniki, Usolye, Cherdyn, there are not so many wooden sculptures, literally a few. Most of them settled here, in the art gallery of Perm. In the twenties, a team of specialists was formed here who understood the value of a unique sculpture. And who had sufficient authority to save this sculpture. This was not easy to do. Scientists had to take out sculptures from remote northern towns and villages where there was no railway. Drive through the forests on carts, sledges or boats to the nearest pier.

The statues came to the museum from the devastated northern temples. Not everything made it to the museum. It's scary to think how many unique works of art were smashed and burned by the zealous Komsomol members of those years. Most likely, scientists had to literally snatch them from the hands of the zealots of atheistic propaganda. They took only what experts considered the most valuable. Everything "less valuable" was destroyed.

Look here. All Perm statues of Christ have similar poses. This is because the statues were the centers of similar compositions "Christ in the dungeon". Christ was surrounded by the dungeon itself - a cramped, dark room. This "dungeon", in spite of the fact that the prison was not supposed to decorate, was nevertheless decorated. Beautiful carved reliefs, chiseled columns, statues of angels with the instruments of the Passion of Christ. Each of the seated statues of Christ had a similar setting. The statues of Christ have survived, but all their rich carvings have been lost.
Only later did scientists realize the value of the whole composition. And one of the "dungeons" was brought to Perm entirely. This "dungeon" for a long time, literally decades, was restored, collecting pieces of broken wood bit by bit.

For some reason, these figures reminded me of antiquity. Powerful, expressive generalized images, though not marble, but wooden. By the way, the ancient Greeks also painted their sculptures, it's just that time washed away all the paint from them.
However, among the Permian sculptures there are monochromatic, almost monochrome figures.

And I also thought that maybe it would be worth reviving this ancient and unique for Russia tradition of Perm sculpture, just like many folk crafts were reviving.

PERM GODS

The article was first published in the Soviet Art magazine, 1928, No. 5, p. 22-29. Published according to the text of the journal.

The article in the magazine is illustrated with images of some Permian sculptures. Lunacharsky refers to them.

Of all kinds fine arts the least fortunate in our country is sculpture. In the cultural, individualized art of our country, “sculpture as such, i.e., pictorial sculpture, revolving mainly around a person, occupies a modest role. In the 18th and 19th centuries we had several very good, great sculptors. However, our sculpture has passed;, on the one hand, it can in no way be put on the same level with the sculpture of European countries and, on the other hand, it is undoubtedly inferior both in the number of names, and in the richness of works, and in their significance and our painting, and graphics, not to mention architecture.

At the present time we seem to have some interesting turning point in this regard. The first independent sculpture exhibition in Moscow was an unexpected surprise in terms of the number of interesting exhibits. At the exhibition of state orders organized by the Council of People's Commissars for the 10th anniversary of October, the sculptors, in my opinion, certainly prevailed over the painters. However, it is too early to speak of any turn in this regard.

Both orally and in writing, other connoisseurs of our art and other amateurs who are interested in it like to repeat that sculpture is not characteristic of the nature of the peoples inhabiting our country and that, moreover, their sculptural instinct is undermined by Orthodoxy, which allowed rich the participation of painting and all kinds of ornament, both carved and stucco, but with great indifference, and sometimes with bright hostility, treated sculptural works. The sculpture of God and saints seemed for a very long time to be a direct step towards idolatry; icons were taken for a less dangerous reification of the deity. And the church order for a long time dominated over any other.

Perhaps there is a certain amount of truth in all this. Perhaps, indeed, the specific social conditions, the conditions of our cultural development, hindered the true development of the sculptural genius of the peoples inhabiting the territory of our Union. But that this genius is inherent, if not in all, perhaps at least in many national elements of our country, is beyond any doubt. Further research in this area will probably find many interesting lines of sculptural creativity, which lacked only sufficient support in the social environment in order to flourish with the most amazing luxury.

Recently, only in its entirety, open Permian folk sculpture, the study of which has begun to be studied only very recently, leads to such thoughts.

Perm wooden sculpture is collected in the Perm State Regional Museum. An extremely interesting work by N. N. Serebrennikov “Perm wooden sculpture (Materials of a preliminary study and inventory)” is dedicated to it.

Upon entering the large hall where the Permian "gods" are gathered, I was struck by their abundance, diversity, unexpected expressiveness and a mixture of naivety and spontaneity with art, sometimes positively refined.

What is this Permian sculpture, which apparently unfolded in the 17th century, continued to live and evolve throughout the 18th century and began to decline in the 19th century, and now it is frozen, let's hope - in anticipation of a new flourishing on new beginnings?

Perm sculpture served the church. However, the original note that pervades this sculpture and makes it both sociologically and artistically of extraordinary value is a pagan note, a foreign note, coming undoubtedly and directly from the Permian culture. idolaters.

True, despite the energetic persecution of the Orthodox clergy (or rather, its leaders) against church sculpture, it is by no means absent from the artistic decoration of Orthodox churches, partly due to the influence of the Catholic Church, which, as you know, gave church sculpture no less space than painting. Such influence came from Germany through Novgorod and Pskov. It left significant interesting traces in the form of monuments, mainly wooden sculptures. On the other hand, it poured into Ukraine in a wide stream through Austria, Poland, reflected on many, many Ukrainian churches, and began to seep to the north. There is no doubt that both of these waves reached the Permian margin. The Permian outskirts could not but feel the action of the cultural lines of force that came from Novogorod in very old times. It is known that some Ukrainian hierarchs worked in Perm, undoubtedly more liberally minded towards sculptural decoration churches, and brought their taste here.

However, the extraordinary development of sculpture in the Perm province is explained not only by this influence, but also by the fact that it found extremely fertile soil for its development among the Permians, who, apparently, developed their own special sculptural techniques over the long centuries of their paganism. In fact, most of these sculptures (in churches or in storerooms on the bell towers of churches, in a semi-abandoned form) we find in the Upper Kama and Komi-Permyak districts. The farther to the south and west, the less statues we find, that is, the statues decrease along with the decline in the percentage of the indigenous Permian population. No less proof is the fact that the Permian racial type, sharply different from the Great Russian, affected most of the sculptures.

It can even be said that the two main figures of Perm sculpture - the seated Christ and Nikola Mozhai - are a direct replacement for the pre-existing divine images.

We know that for a long time the favorite image of some pagan creature was the so-called "Golden Woman".

Much suggests that the "Golden Woman" is an image of a seated Buddha that has reached the Permians through the steppes. A calm, resting god for centuries, in which the philosophical idea of ​​nirvana was reflected for a highly developed Buddhist religiosity, and for a simple person, crushed by labor and suffering, the idea of ​​calm, was also accepted by the primitive Permian with a feeling of deep satisfaction.

The seated Christ began to take the place of this seated Buddha, especially in the 18th century, when the Great Russian conquerors and their clergy began to exterminate the remnants of primitive religion and cult with fire and sword, law and lawlessness.

It is interesting to note that the Permyak seated Christ, painted and for the most part dressed in different vestments, always has the same pose. He sits not so much thoughtful as, as it were, far removed from the world, trying to endure everything in some kind of stubborn passivity, and he always has one hand - either right or left - raised to his cheek, as if to protect himself from a slap in the face. What a strange and quite peasant god! He is depicted at the moment when he is beaten and when he opposes this beating with some kind of stubborn patience, the Permian pagan - he prayed to the "Golden Woman", who had an indistinct vague smile of serene sleep - no one has ever beat.

But then came the Christian religion, and with it the Christian manners. Permyak felt all the charm of the Great Russian civilization and began to portray himself under the guise of Christ (his Christ is a Permyak man) as a beaten patient.

Nikola Mozhai is another favorite god of the Permians. In one hand he holds a sword, and in the other - a church (before - some other obscure piece of furniture). They recognize the primitive god Voipel in him - a national deity, in which, apparently, the idea of ​​​​a god that destroys and creates, also coming from the Far East, is embedded.

It can be thought that Paraskeva-Friday, depicted as a formidable, large-headed figure of an ascetic type - Paraskeva, who is not at all in the church calendar, but whose worship is very common in different places in Russia, is also a reflection of a female deity, with unclear functions of which - the degenerate northern sister of Isis, Ishtar and Aphrodite.

It is interesting to get acquainted with this painted wooden sculpture of Permian-Russian origin in everyday life. Now this life is irretrievably a thing of the past, only some fragments remain of it, but this does not prevent it from being interesting. As we have already said, these gods are close to the Permian, they are connected with him by a long connection. Permyak still refers to the images of the gods as idols; for example, if a saint or a god depicted on an icon hanging in a Permian hut did not fulfill any prayer, then the Permian, as a punishment, hangs the icon upside down for a certain number of days. When several sculptures for the gallery were seized from the village of Tolstika in the Verkhne-Kama District and the peasants were asked to bring them to the steamer to the Kama pier five miles away, they simply waited for these statues. They arrived very late. It turned out that the delay was due to the desire of the entire population to say goodbye to the statues. The headman said: "People are seen off, and then they say goodbye." In addition, Tolstoy's Permians did not want to put their gods simply in boxes - "not things." They arranged coffins for them, spread shavings and tow, covered everything with linen, laid their gods and covered them with linen blankets. So they sent it to the gallery.

In the Perm chapel of Peter and Paul was the famous sitting "savior". By all accounts, when no one was watching him, he got up and left the chapel and went about his business. At the same time, he wore out his shoes, so that his admirers brought him a new pair of shoes every year, and by the end of the year, look, he had already worn out the soles to holes again. Exactly the same, by. According to believers, Nikola Mozhay from the village of Zelenyaty liked to walk. According to the watchman, he wore out 8 pairs of shoes in 7 years. When the surveyor asked the watchman why Nikolai Mozhay was so eager to make his walking trips, the watchman explained: “After all, he wants something, but you can’t stop the tree.” Thus, the god went, obviously, to steal where he could, food, for although he himself was carved from wood, but “jamming” the tree seemed to him not appetizing enough. More than 10,000 worshipers usually flocked to the feast of this Zelenyaksky Nikola Mozhai on July 16, 9 clergy served continuous prayers and took away peasant copper nickels in large bags. Prayers came up to kiss Nikola Mozhai. If you kiss him without a miter - 5 kopecks, in the old miter - fifty kopecks, in a new miter - a ruble. Obviously, the poor kissed for a nickel, the middle peasants - for a fifty-kopeck piece, and the fists - for a ruble. Sore spots were allowed to be rubbed with the hollow of Nikola Mozhay, which is why trachoma and sometimes syphilis spread in a terrifying way after each such holiday.

The highly artistic expressiveness of the Permian gods was important for the clergy. So, for example, in the village of Trinity, the population protested against the removal of the seated Christ and, explaining their attachment to him, declared: “It is very pitiful to look at him, you won’t leave the chapel without tears.” And yet, at the insistence of the Orthodox clergy, some of these gods were declared supernumerary, carried away to storerooms, and even simply chopped for firewood.

These statues were carved and beautifully painted by special craftsmen. Information about the last of them, the Filimonov brothers and Ivan Ivanovich Melnikov from Obvinen, has come down to us. Back in the second half of the 19th century, there were 15 workshop carvers in the Perm-Ural region. As you can see, it was a whole school that could develop its art through dependence on each other.

A cursory glance at the nature of the carving of this sculpture is enough to see a significant influence of the West, Scandinavians and Germans, to a lesser extent Italians. Often the whole manner of carving, and in particular the interpretation of rich clothes in the late Gothic spirit or even in the spirit of the Baroque, comes almost to identity with remarkable works of the corresponding Western European eras.

It is a pity that it is difficult to trace the roots of Permian sculpture. It is known that even in ancient times, the Permians had a great sculptural talent, as evidenced by numerous metal figures attributed to the early times of their culture. They also had a wooden, painted sculpture, but from that time only a wooden idol from the Goigirinsky peat bog remained. As early as the end of the 15th century, Jonah, Bishop of Perm, having baptized Great Perm and its prince, began a struggle with idols, about which it is said: “The gods were idols, sculpted, sculpted, gouged, carved with a notch.”

Thus, the 17th century, which began to create church sculpture after the final victory of the Great Russians over the Permians (Nogais, as they were called at that time), is undoubtedly connected with the old Permian culture. The Permian commoner, as Serebrennikov rightly says, clearly carried within himself a great creative burning, for if this sculpture was created by "masters", then these masters were peasants.

Remarkable is the art of carving, unfolding in a peculiar way over a two-hundred-year period; the coloring is also full of taste. Serebrennikov correctly described it: “... modesty and regularity in the coloring of clothes, as well as a limited number of colors, successfully helps the master to avoid heaviness in the folds of clothes. The monochromatic coloring of each garment in its own, necessarily almost muted, color contributes to the transfer of soft shadows and is one of the main elements that organize the composition as a whole and connected. Favorite colors for coloring are white, black, blue, red, blue-green, then lilac, bluish, etc. were introduced.

We won't go into details technical order, into the apparently existing currents and schools, which developed both in parallel and sequentially; Let's dwell on some individual works that we happened to see in the museum. Seated Christs are abundantly represented here. In order to give a complete understanding of such a Christ in everyday life, the “saviors” completely sitting in a dungeon are exhibited along with a chapel - either magnificently carved, like Kapabekovskaya, or simple, like a closet, like in Big Koch.

More-Kochevsky, a very remarkable Christ, who put his hand to a slapped face, we present here in the form of an illustration. However, in an artistic and psychological sense, some other seated "saviors" are more striking, presented in a naked form, as they were directly cut by the masters. Here is one such savior, a Permian from the Redicore chapel. Despite some naivety of the image, it is an amazing work of art in the sense of a bold stylization and an almost terrible facial expression, in which one can see dull, stubborn humility and at the same time inner horror - a symbol of a drowned people.

Of the crucifixes, the most amazing (although there are a lot of interesting crucifixes) is the one taken from the Solikamsk chapel. If it makes a directly painful and powerful impression on everyone, then a connoisseur of art cannot but be amazed at the economy of techniques, the deep instinctive calculation of the effect of a pose, which simultaneously takes into account the passive obedience of a suffering organism and the gravitating force of an already inert mass. It is impossible not to pay attention also to the completely expressionistic expressiveness of the artistically interpreted half-dead head with its black, like coal, falling curls.

The God of Hosts from the Lysva Church must be recognized as an absolutely unprecedented and absolutely amazing phenomenon. Here we have an image of an unusually powerful god. The head is interpreted under the influence of ancient sculpture, this is the head of Jupiter. From the whole composition breathes some peculiar combination of antique or high renaissance and baroque. Serebrennikov is inclined to see in this the work of some serf who traveled around Europe and saw South European samples. May be.

From Nikol Mozhaev, who are all unusually characteristic and curious, we present an almost enigmatic figure from Pokchi. This is positively a masterpiece of expressionist sculpture, having in itself some highly artistic manner. The whole interpretation of a small figure in strictly falling clothes is full of taste. A long sword in one hand, a late 17th century type church in the other. But the most remarkable thing is his head, supernaturally elongated, with a strange type of which the poet-sculptor wanted to convey some kind of high psychic power. The statue impresses precisely with the amazing confidence of the artist and the flight of the master's psychological imagination.

Finally, the ancient image of the goddess Friday from Nyrob will complete the illustrations given here, which only partially exhaust the most interesting things in the museum and Serebrennikov's book. This figure, a merciless, stern, full of lively reproachful eye looking mistress, is made here with unusually simple techniques - a real reflection of the most ancient matriarchy.

What conclusions can be drawn from this treasury of Russian-Perm sculptural works? Apparently, the high result was achieved by crossing the mature art of the West with the high sculptural instinct of the ancient pagan Permian culture that was available locally. This instinct resulted not only in a sense of form, whether it be simplified or, on the contrary, masterfully and ornately expressed with the help of abundant folds of clothing, but mainly in the socio-psychological expressiveness that Perm masters semiconsciously put into their works. The suffering of a person offended by death torment - sacrifices, worship, on the other hand, before the rulers, whether it be the distant god-king of Sabaoth, or some mysterious magician Nikola Mozhai ruling the brain of the masses, or the gloomy matron Pyatnitsa - this is what we find, mainly , imprinted in the frightened and mournful imagination of a religious Permian. His God either expresses his own grief, or is a master and executioner superior to his culture.

We wish with all our heart that the Permian sculptural genius does not dry out along with the drying up of church sculpture. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the unique, almost brilliant carvers of the country should be scattered there. Now they will have no need to deify humiliated patience or merciless power. Other times - other songs; other times - other statues. But it is impossible not to recognize in the Perm gods evidence of great talent, great artistic taste, great expressiveness, which is characteristic not only of the peoples of the Great Russian-Permian mixture of the northeastern part of the Perm Territory, but, of course, of many, many other groups of the highly gifted population of our Union.

author Akutagawa Ryunosuke

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Perm wooden sculpture is one of the symbols of the Perm region. The collection of the Perm Art Gallery is the largest in Russia. Currently, its number is 501 storage units. Active acquisition refers to the initial period in the history of the gallery. In 1923-1926, six expeditions were organized to collect antiquities. They covered a vast territory from Perm and its environs to the northernmost villages on the border of the region. Most of the collection of wooden sculptures - 396 items - was formed in a little over three years: 354 items were brought from expeditions, 42 came from churches and chapels in Perm and Motovilikha. The collection covers the period from the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century, mainly sculptures of the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of it is made up of monuments of Orthodox art. Catholic sculpture is represented in the collection by two crosses with a carved image of a crucifix. The earliest exhibits date back to the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries: Nikola Mozhaisky from the village. Pokcha, Nikola the Wonderworker from Cherdyn, St. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, Calvary Cross with the instruments of the Passion (carved icon). The later exhibits are the works of the carver Nikon Kiryanov, who lived at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries: the Crucifixion, the Passionate angelic rank, the Crucifixion surrounded by 34 cherubs. In quantitative terms, the most relief and sculptural images of angels, cherubs and seraphim (165 exhibits). A significant part of the collection is made up of sculptural compositions: the Crucifixion with the coming, the Mother of God, John the Theologian, Mary Magdalene, Centurion Longinus (102 exhibits). The world-famous sculptures of the seated Savior (there are 17 of them in the collection) formed the core of the permanent exhibition. The vast majority of works of Permian wooden sculpture are impersonal, today the names of only three carvers are known: D. Domnina from the village. Lysva, N. Filimonova and N. Kiryanova from the village. Gabovo, Karagai region. For the first time, Perm wooden sculpture (along with sewing, fabrics, bone products, wood metal) was presented to the viewer in 1924 at the exhibition of the artistic antiquity of the Perm Territory, which was held in Perm at the Kolibri cinema (Communist, 39). In the same year, the first exposition of Perm wooden sculpture was opened in the building of the Art Museum. In 1980, X-ray examination of 38 sculptures was undertaken for the first time for scientific purposes. The resulting radiographs have become an important research material for clarifying the dating and technological characteristics of these rarities. The collection was shown at exhibitions in France, Japan, Italy, Belgium, Germany, exhibited at the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin (Moscow), State Historical Museum (Moscow). In 2017, it was first shown in the Far East - in the museums of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, in 2018 in Omsk.

The figures of the Mother of God, the Savior, St. Nicholas of Myra, John the Theologian, Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, made of wood… The first inattentive impression from the exposition of the Perm Art Gallery is that this does not happen in the Orthodox tradition, it is “not ours”. But if you carefully look, peer, it turns out that “ours”, only special, unique. It is not for nothing that Permian wooden sculpture is a separate page in the history of fine arts.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, wooden sculptures were kept in churches and chapels in the Perm region. More than one generation of believers prayed before them.
The craftsmen created sculptures with the ethnic features of local residents, Komi-Permyaks and Tatars, depicted them in traditional peasant clothes, thereby bringing the Orthodox tradition closer to their lives, inscribing themselves, their loved ones, neighbors in the context of the Gospel story. Naturally, doing this from an inner impulse, and not from complex theological reflections.
Some researchers believe that Perm church wooden sculpture is also associated with pagan tradition. But when you look at the sculptures, you don't think so. Before you is the desire of the masters not to create an idol instead of the image of God, but to see - how everything happened, to feel, internally, deeply - to sympathize. In a word, to see how the harsh Permian lands are connected with the distant hot Jerusalem.

Cathedral of the Archangels. From the village of Gubdor.

There are several images of Christ in prison in the exhibition. Here folk tradition goes beyond the gospel narrative, showing the Savior in prison, thereby, as if even more emphasizing His abandonment by everyone. He humbly awaits execution, fearing and accepting it. The artists seemed to put a prayer into His mouth: Father! Oh, that You would deign to carry this cup past Me! but not my will, but yours be done (Lk 22:42).
Here is what Evgenia Shaburova, head of the department of domestic art at the Perm State Art Gallery, says about one of these sculptures:
“The sculpture “Christ in the dungeon” from the village of Pashiya entered the gallery from the Kanabekovskaya chapel in the Pashiysky factory of the Perm district in 1924. The work is unique in that it is a whole sculptural complex with a complex compositional structure. Such monuments in very rare cases have survived to this day.

The whole complex consists of a glazed dungeon with carved gilded columns at the corners, with magnificent ornamental carvings on the lower panels, with a complex dome in the form of a tent, decorated with eight angels with tools of the Passion in their hands. The instruments of the Passion are objects associated with the torment of Christ, which have become symbolic in the images of various subjects: a bag with thirty pieces of silver, rods, nooses (rooster), a scourging column, nails, a hammer, a spear, a cane and other objects that were associated with these events. .
In wooden sculptures, one can find some connection with Romanesque art, but, as art critic Mikhail Alpatov wrote, “whatever influences we find in Russian folk sculpture, this art is self-original, indigenous, soil. Like folk poetry, folk architecture, and folk applied art, the people created sculpture for themselves, for their own needs, in accordance primarily with their own concepts of goodness and beauty. This art reflects the simple, sometimes even stagnant way of life of the Russian peasantry in the far corners of the country, especially in the North.

Mother of God, Perm. 18th century

Endowing the sculptural images with realistic features, their own national characteristics, the masters, however, often brought into the work the features of icon painting, as if showing that a three-dimensional work, located here, in our three-dimensional world, reminds of another, the Mountain.
The face of St. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa from the sculptural composition of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa and the upcoming Barbara and Catherine (dated from the 17th-19th centuries, transferred to the gallery from the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Nyrob, Cherdyn District) is still more of a face. Facing the audience, the figures of the holy martyrs are actually in some other spiritual dimension, standing before the Lord.
In total, the collection of the Perm Art Gallery contains about 400 sculptures created in the 17th–19th centuries. One of the founders of the collection is Nikolai Nikolaevich Serebrennikov, the son of a priest, who devoted his whole life to the study of Russian art.
From 1923 to 1926, he organized six expeditions, mainly to the northern regions of the Perm region, which resulted in unique finds. The very ones that could have died in the era of the struggle against religion and that art lovers from all over the world come to see.

Muscovites will be able to see Permian sculpture at the State Historical Museum and at the State Historical Museum from December 18 to March 9

Exposition of wooden sculpture in the Perm Art Gallery.

Position in the coffin. From the village of Nizhny Shaksher.

Expedition of 1925 led by N. N. Serebrennikov. Pier Pozhva.

Christ in the Dark. From the village of Pashiya.

Photo by Valery Zarovnyakh.

Screensaver photo - an angel flying from the village of Sirinskoe

... Call, conjure, calling back,
Wooden Perm gods...
Y. Drunina

One of the wonders of the Kama land are the Permian gods. These amazing carved wooden icon sculptures amaze with the perfection of the work of unknown masters who managed to create unique images. Where did this rare skill come from? Of course, it was passed down from generation to generation, because in order to create a believable illusion of a living body from wood, talent, experience, and centuries-old traditions were required.

Back in the 14th century, the monk Stefan of Perm brought Christianity to Perm. The locals were idolaters and in great numbers skillfully carved their idols from wood, in front of which they made sacrifices. For a long time Christian priests could not cope with the indefatigable creative spirit of the people. In Rus', the Peruns, Vepes and similar pagan gods had long been crushed, and since the carved sculpture icons looked somewhat like them, the spiritual authorities categorically forbade these wooden statues from being displayed in churches. An exception was made for very few, for example, for Nikola Mozhaisky, who allegedly worked all sorts of miracles in the old days. Some especially holy figures of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa were not touched either. By a special decree of 1722, all other sculpture icons were to be brought to St. Petersburg, to the courtyard of the Holy Synod, and burned there.

Permians, in spite of everything, continued to create and honor their gods. Then the Russian clergy came to a compromise.

Perm craftsmen were allowed to make wooden sculpture, but only images of Orthodox saints. The craft, which was forced to be practiced secretly, somewhere in the forest, received a new life. The inhabitants of the Kama region liked the Orthodox traditions, and they began to carve Paraskeva Friday, John the Theologian, Mary Magdalene, Jesus Christ. Especially a lot appeared Nikol. But folk masters created according to their ideas about the figure of the saint and his image. So, Paraskeva Pyatnitsa from the village of Nyrob has a disproportionately large head, elongated facial features, large eyes, a thin and long, strongly protruding nose, thin, compressed lips. The well-known art researcher and collector of the famous collection of wooden sculptures, Nikolai Nikolaevich Serebrennikov, wrote: "Paraskeva Pyatnitsa is interpreted in the spirit of popular beliefs... Planar forms give an ascetic appearance to this female deity." The sculpture of Nikola Mozhay from the village of Pokchi appears the same way. The saint also has a supernaturally elongated head.

Interesting figures of the Savior - Jesus Christ. The Holy Synod in 1722 and 1767 by special decrees strictly forbade the three-dimensional depiction of Christ, considering it a great sin. But was it possible to cope with folk ideas? So the figures of the Savior carved from wood began to appear in the Permian land, in churches and chapels.

Such a god was more understandable to ordinary people than painted icons. Most often, the figure of Christ is presented in a sitting position, with his right hand raised to his face, the left lies on his knees, sometimes there is a stick or a branch in it, and a wreath of thorns on his head. The statue was placed in a special "dungeon" in the church, dressed in light yellow-golden brocade clothes.

Clothes were changed depending on the Christian calendar. On Holy Week covered with black velvet, at Easter dressed in bright clothes of shiny silver brocade.

A chain with a cross was hung around the neck. An unquenchable lamp was lit in front of Christ. Sometimes Christ was dressed up in the clothes of a peasant - a blue shabur, girded with a patterned belt.

The local population revered these sculptures as the main deity. All successes and failures were associated with them, people went to them with a bow and donations for any reason. The figures were considered alive. They allegedly were unhappy when they were transferred from place to place, they themselves returned at night to their old place, went from house to house, visited the poor, while trampling on a pair of shoes during the night. They left a variety of food and donations. So, in the village of Bolshaya Kocha, near the chapel, where the sculpture of the seated Savior was located, in 1911 80 bulls were buried.

Thus, Christian themes and pagan traditions were wonderfully combined in the wooden figures. Nowadays, such sculptures can be seen in temples, they are also in the museums of the Perm region - in the cities of Perm, Cherdyn, Solikamsk, Berezniki, Kudymkar, Kungur and others. A total of at least 500 wooden statues have survived.

The collection of wooden sculpture adorns the collection of the Perm Art Gallery; there are several figures in the funds of the Regional Museum of Local Lore. In 1928, Lunacharsky, seeing the Permian wooden gods, exclaimed: "Permian sculptures could be an adornment of any European museum!"

Here they are, the Perm gods, created in the 17th - 19th centuries by the hands of local carvers, craftsmen on the amazing, unique, mysterious Perm land.