63 Arts and Crafts
63 Arts and Crafts
63 Arts and Crafts
Museums in Estonia are filled to the brim with examples of handicraft from the past that we tend to label folk art. The men and women who once produced these things knew nothing about museums or the concept of folk art these terms were devised by modern scholarly thought. We appreciate and systematise and try to figure out the connections between people and artefacts, which regrettably slip gradually further out of our reach and become all the harder to understand. The original causes and effects are pushed aside by present-day suppositions. We do, after all, explain and decode in a system of signs that we can comprehend ourselves.
Watercolour of a coif ornament from Tarvastu (see map on the inside of the back cover)
Thus it may happen that we overlook the most simple explanations: they made their pretty clothes, work tools, textiles or other useful artefacts both for observing focal points in their lives as well as for everyday use; they got married and celebrated weddings; they covertly compared their homespun lap robes and sleigh-blankets with those of their neighbours, or embroidered white patterns on white linen in a dark room lit only by the dim light from the flame of a wooden splinter.
.ake artefact of dubious taste or a touch of Estonian self-irony? In addition to the state decorations of the Republic of Estonia, Roman Tavasts workshop provided several curious products for Estonian handicraft enthusiasts to debate over.
To show his love for a woman, a man would carve patterns on an engagement gift for her this might be an ordinary laundry bat that pounded coarse work-trousers in the wash trough or was left soaking in soapy water. If we concentrate on the general conception of the world of the crafter and the motivation behind his or her creativity, we can discard all debates on whether we are dealing with applied art or simply handicraft. It is this approach that could help us once again to focus on the artefacts themselves and perhaps offer a glimpse of their forgotten hidden message.
Pikesevene (Boat of the Sun; mezzotinto, 1974) from the cycle Kodalased (Ancient Dwellers) by Kaljo Pllu
The origins
The Estonians like to think of themselves as one of the most ancient settled native peoples in Europe. Starting from the arrival of the earliest human inhabitants at the end of the last ice age, about 10 000 years or 400 generations ago, until the second half of the 20th century, there is no evidence of any significant wave of immigration. People naturally moved to and from Estonia during and after various disasters wars, epidemics, famines, etc. but the Estonians peasant village settlement usually absorbed the foreigners in the course of a few generations. The persistence of the mentality of the native people is also reflected in the fact how often the memes inherited from their reindeerhunting ancestors crop up in the expressions of collective self-consciousness of todays quite urbanised Estonians.
Comb Pottery Potsherd with waterfowl ornament from Lommi Reconstruction of a pot from Jgala
It is the ancient artefacts unearthed by archaeologists that have originally served as both example and inspiration for the antediluvian images of a water bird or world tree that keep sneaking into modern Estonian applied art and handicraft. Apparently, however, an even more substantial role has been played by such leading promoters of national mythology as artist Kaljo Pllu, or writer and film-maker Lennart Meri, who have taken pains to disclose the meaning hidden in the age-old patterns to their countrymen.
In the 14th century, a mere three or four generations after the arrival of the first German colonists, the biggest town in Estonia at the time, Tallinn (Reval), boasted more than 50 lines of handicraft. Most artisans worked with metal (black-, silver- and goldsmiths, swordsmiths and locksmiths, kettlesmiths, saw-makers, pewterers) and leather (shoemakers, saddlers, tanners, furriers). During the heyday of the Hanseatic League in the 15th century, there were artisans representing 73 different areas of craftsmanship active in Tallinn. While all this looks quite similar to the history of crafts in the rest of Europe, one must not overlook a rather significant difference. Throughout most of the post-conquest period from the medieval times up till as late as 1870s the social divisions of Estonian society coincided quite precisely with a division according to nationality.
Pocket-shaped pendant lock Door lock
Estonians, always an overwhelming majority, comprised the peasantry in countryside as well as the under-privileged labour force and practitioners of less prestigious trades in towns. Higher ranks in the social hierarchy, ecclesiastic as well as secular, were occupied by non-Estonians mostly Germans and, from the end of 19th century until the foundation of the Republic of Estonia in 1918, increasingly Russians. The Deutschbalten (German Baltic Germans the clergy, nobility, merchants and artisans; later also intelligentsia or literati) retained close contacts with their forefathers land of origin and through that with the rest of Europe. Thus new handicraft techniques (via itinerant journeymen and apprentices), items (by way of merchants) or patterns (copied from life or pattern guides) originating in Italy or .rance, or spreading from the Orient, often quickly found their way to Estonian towns, manor houses and vicarages. What prevented them from spreading widely in the countryside was the static mentality of maarahvas (from Estonian maa land, country, Estonia + rahvas people) who clung on to their old types of adornments for generations, maintained their sacred places over the centuries or stuck to the same patterns for millennia. Croze saws, the usual tools in European cooperage, were widely used by Estonias urban craftsmen from the Middle Ages onwards. In the country, on the other hand, their place was taken, throughout the time when wooden vessels dominated, by grooving knives. In addition to Estonia, these tools were typical of Scandinavia, Northern Latvia and Ingria.
Cooper Elmar Reisenbuk from Avinurme cutting a croze with a grooving knife
To show off ones clothes, people often had to cut corners elsewhere there was a saying in the Tartu-Maarja parish: Whats in your tummy remains untold, but what youre wearing is there for all to behold.
Estonian women going to church by A. G. Pezold (17941859)
The poor living standard of Estonians caused a situation where a peasant could not see much sense in decorating his home. Both the land and the buildings belonged to the manor, and the landlord decided how long one could remain under the same roof. .urthermore, it would have been quite pointless to decorate the rooms of the low and chimney-less building with the light coming through tiny windows covered by pig-bladder, hardly anything could be seen in the smoky half-light. The household furniture was, consequently, meagre and extremely austere. There was not much stuff around. Apt in adjusting to circumstances, Estonians directed their attention to life outside the home: they were particularly keen on travel wraps and sleigh-blankets, the multitude of gifts that the bride presented to wedding guests veimed as well as on an array of everyday items that were used outside the house. This is most vividly expressed in the time-consuming effort put into making the colourful and diligently adorned traditional costumes.
A major change occurred in Estonian rural life after the 1860s; this was when peasants started to purchase land (reclaim the land forfeited by their forefathers, as most Estonians felt) and property, the period of National Awakening and the transition towards urban ideals. This was also when a new motto: Be a master in your own house, was adopted. .or decorating their homes, people took to manufacturing or purchasing artefacts they had not even heard of before. The efforts that had previously been directed at embellishing ritual objects for the outside world to see, were gradually channelled into improving everyday domestic life. .rom that time onwards, handicraft in a variety of tastes confirmed itself as a natural and appreciated part of Estonian interiors, both at home and in office. By the end of the 19th century, what might be called national handicraft began taking shape one of the tangible results of the emergence of ethnic selfconsciousness among Estonians. Traditional handicrafts became national when the user had developed a sufficient distance from the previous connotations. While any countryman, at the time of the change of century, still enjoyed sipping his beer from a traditionally crafted wooden beer mug (regarding it, quite naturally, as the most suitable vessel for such a purpose, not as something particularly national), his educated son, a first generation townsman, placed a similar stein on his desk, seeing it as a pretty Estonian artefact.
The first collectors looking for the beautiful handicraft articles made by their ancestors started their rounds of Estonian villages roughly at the same time. Early in the 20th century, the idea of founding a museum for our own national things cropped up repeatedly, and such an institution eventually came into being under the name Eesti Rahva Muuseum (Estonian National Museum) in 1909. To this day, the museum serves people as a place to find examples and inspiration.
At the same time much of what had emerged in peasant culture during several centuries disappeared from everyday use or acquired completely new functions. While, for example, the festive and church clothes from different periods gradually turned into national costumes, everyday work clothes woven and sewn at home had already disappeared in many places by the end of the 19th century. Part of the handicraft tradition faded away because the items involved had lost their original function in the approaching era of goods produced by machines and bought in shops, the crafts of making birch tar or bast shoes were inevitably doomed. The decline of handicraft skills was partly due also to social anachronisation: the purchased piece of clothing, for instance, was not necessarily of finer quality or even cheaper; for a tradition to vanish it was often enough for the urban fashions to reach a place.
Estonian National Museums storage facilities
Still, part of the ancient skills have managed to survive the low point of consumption and sprung to new life, either meeting the demands for modern-time souvenirs or thanks to other reasons, in the very start of 21st century.
Despite the extinction of many original craft traditions or, ironically, rather because of that our and national have become, during the last one hundred years or so, a true fashion of its own in Estonia. Among the most prominent examples of the trend are the Arts and Crafts influenced manifestations of the early 20th century Estonian National Romanticism inspired by the examples of .inland and Scandinavia and adopted to compensate for the lack of shining heroes in the nations history.
The artists house of Ants Laikmaa, one of the earliest and most famous Estonian artists, completed in the late 1920s in Taebla in West Estonia, is an impressively integral example of the Estonian National Romanticism in good taste.
In times of political difficulties, in particular, everything national has easily provided moral support. The harsher the everyday reality, the more strength the surrounding artefacts have afforded to reaffirm the spirit of being Estonian. Both the founding (in 1918) and restoration (in 1991) of the Republic of Estonia, in particular, were heydays for national spirit expressed in items. On occasions, it cannot be denied, this approach has resulted in rather grotesque manifestations.
Oddly enough, the people who have perhaps cherished the Estonian handicraft tradition the most, live abroad. .or tens of thousands of Estonians persuaded or forced to abandon their homeland during the 19th and 20th century, it has provided rare moments of solace, something from the past to cling to. .rom the Crimea to Patagonia, and from British Columbia to New South Wales, the way Estonian migrs have interpreted and rendered the Estonian handicraft tradition has caused it to develop in a way of its own, resulting partly in fastidiously preserved still lifes from the 19th century, partly in astonishing blends with local traditions.
A china statuette depicting a stylised womans costume of Hiiumaa, made by Estonian migrs in Sweden.
Estonian settlers reached Abkhasia in the foothills of Caucasus, at the end of the 19th century. Since then, their rooms have acquired wallhangings with mountain scenery in addition to the textiles with traditional Estonian geometric ornaments. 10
Back in Estonia, despite the ever increasing pace of urbanisation and the spread of ready-made lifestyle, even today one can find a few locations the island of Kihnu in the Gulf of Livonia and the district of Setumaa in the South-East corner of the mainland, to name two examples where traditionally-made clothing as well as a variety of homecarved household items are still found in daily use.
On the other hand, a large part of woodcraft techniques can be found in Estonia on the western border of their zone of distribution further west there is no knowledge of weaving bast shoes or birch-bark utensils.
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Handicraft of Mulgimaa, in many ways the most inwardlooking region of Estonia, has preserved various features from the Middle Ages (probably 11th13th centuries), such as patterns with shoots of arbor vitae (Tree of Life), circles with inserted crosses and octagonal stars (benediction crosses and stars of felicity from Gothic Art), as well as clothes with archaic cut wrap-skirts and longcoats.
The frontier between those two spheres of influence largely coincides with the border separating Lower Estonia (Western Islands and the depressions that rose from the one-time seabed of the countrys western and north-western parts) and Higher Estonia (elevations and plains of the countrys East and South). The best arable lands are located in Higher Estonia and, consequently, a more homogeneous peasant culture developed there. Adversely, in comparison to the rest of the country, under the circumstances of serfdom that became fully established in Estonia in the 18th century, this meant tougher rents and labour dues in that area; and thus even more unbearable living conditions. That is why the scholars who took an interest in the life of rural population in the 19th century, often found the most conservative culture quite closed to outside influence in the more fertile regions of Higher Estonia. Although limiting the outside influence, it was, paradoxically, this very same closedness that also contributed to the variety. Living in isolation (Estonian peasants did not acquire full rights to re-settle and move around until as late as 1863) a great number of parishes or even separate villages developed their own sets of items.
In 1918, Helmi Reiman-Neggo, the first university-educated Estonian ethnologist, summarised this recognition as follows: // Because this truth must be clear to anyone who examines our antiques: however flat and even our country is geologically, thereby favourable to all movement and communication geographically: the history of its inhabitants, however, has proceeded as if insurmountable Alpine mountain ridges separated one parish from another, one village from the other. Such modest mutual influence regarding the everyday items between people living so close to one another is something to be marvelled at. Even neighbouring villages went their own way as far as national costumes are concerned, and at church it was easy to recognise a womans birthplace by her coif.
In my own parish Kolga-Jaani, for example, the Oiu women walked around with huge white wheel coifs. In the nearby Otikla they wore nicely curved coifs like a roosters feather. People in the neighbouring Oorgu made do with much humbler, hemstitch-topped coif, and in Parika village Karulas tulle-topped soft coifs were in vogue. And yet it is a mere 22 versts (i.e. about 23.5 km) from Oiu to Parika village, and even less by taking the paths across the mires. //
Life was different in Estonian border areas where over the centuries various fragments of people settled in search of a better life, or fleeing from persecution. The newcomers often retained relations with their homeland and thus introduced much that was new into the everyday life of Estonians. In Eastern Estonia there are the Russian Old Believers who fled religious persecution and settled at the Estonian side of Lake Peipsi from the end of 17th century; but also the Setus, Orthodox South Estonians of Petserimaa. Among other, less known novelties, these people introduced red cotton yarn in the embroidery of Estonian festive clothes, as well as the saw-patterned decorative carvings wooden lace used on the houses built in many Estonian towns in the period around 1900.
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The other influential minority group was made up of Swedish-speaking fishermen, seal hunters and seamen, who enjoyed ancient privileges from the times of their earliest settlements on the Western Islands and Coast in the 13th 14th centuries. In 19404, virtually the entire community fled to Sweden to escape WW II, but for seven previous centuries the people of Aiboland the collective name of Swedish settlements in Estonia introduced their Estonian countrymen to many a new costume fashion, fishing tool and calendar rite.
Runic calendar from the Pakri Islands
Closeness of the maritime routes of communication made also Estonians of the coastal areas more open and perceptive of the new than their inland contemporaries. Since the barren land could not feed the family, much of livelihood of the people of littoral, especially the islanders, came both from and across the sea doing various jobs on the mainland or on board the ships. In Juminda on the northern coast, when farms could be bought from the landlords the peasants bluntly said: Water will see to the debts! It is now probably impossible to ascertain which Baltic Sea nation introduced others to the ancient skills of making seaworthy rowing and sailing boats with over-lapping clinker-planking. Be it as it may, most of Estonian fishing boats are still built in this fashion that amply proved its worth in Viking times.
Yet, nor are those people much mistaken who claim that various handicraft techniques (and partly also ornamentation) are, at least in Europe, international phenomena, thus making it hopeless to try to distinguish anything uniquely ethnical for each nation. There is reason enough to argue that any analysis on the origin of loans and the path they have followed is doomed to failure. And that the peculiarity of each place is expressed in the interpretation of the main motifs i.e. the treatment of material, usage of ornaments and colour, etc. and naturally in the way all parts hold together in a culture. 14
The positive example to the mind of Estonians, at any rate is the knitted toys with ancient patterns. Conceived in the Viljandi Culture Academy under the auspices of the todays Grand Old Lady of Estonian handicraft, Anu Raud, these creatures, mainly all kinds of animals, look truly cuddly and familiar. There is an inexplicable something at work here that does not allow the result to appear ridiculous.
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Nalbinding
The sources of the technique of making woollen mittens and socks with a single bone needle are lost in the prehistory in Estonia. Nalbound or needle-netted articles, usually felted, lasted for a long time they were thicker and warmer, in comparison to knitwear, and were not liable to unravel. According to the folk tradition: In olden times the devil unstitched all mittens, but he hadnt a clue how to unstitch those. The oldest museum specimens of this kind of mittens date from the eleventh century. .rom about two centuries later (in spite of another saying: Knit mittens lazy wife), knitting faster, simpler and enabling patterning began taking over from needlework. People used needle-netted mittens less and less in daily life, and by the nineteenth century they had become simply an element at the rites of passage wedding and funeral rituals. A mitten of that type was placed on the gift chest, or a pair of mittens in the coffin, in order to ward off evil.
In recent times, the nalbinding technique has been revived in Estonia: both professional artisans and laywomen use it as an interesting variation in equipping their families for winter.
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Welcome cup of the Tanners Guild of Tallinn (Johann Georg Stier, 1730) Master potters certificate of Daniel Bornschein (1787)
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.rame chairs from the 19th century provide ample illustration for the imitation of urban and manorial furniture fashions (from Baroque to Chippendale and Biedermeyer) by peasant craftsmen. A major change only arrived together with the spread of the ideas of German Enlightenment and National Romanticism in Estonia in the 1800s. During their studies at Gttingen, Halle, Jena and other German universities many future manor-owners developed a sense of responsibility for the intellectual advancement of the peasantry back at home. The popular Estonian-language home economics calendars and magazines were one of the results, as were handicraft instruction for the servants at the manor houses. It was through the coachmen, maids, stableboys and wet nurses that a good deal of the more refined patterns, fashions and crafting techniques spread from the manor to the general populace. Thus, in the early 19th century, the fashion and styles from Rococo to Empire style and Biedermeyer that for decades had remained more or less out-of-reach as far as the peasants were concerned, now entered the Estonian consciousness, and found expressions in clothing, home decoration, etc. in a single eclectic wave. Even more rapid changes accompanied the National Awakening in the 1860s. One of many signs of the emancipation of Estonian peasantry was the mushrooming of associations and societies of various sorts. Whether devoted nominally to agricultural improvement, the temperance movement, cycling sport, fire-fighting, or some other activity the authorities agreed to give their permission to, a significant part of the organisations efforts was devoted to civilising their fellow Estonians: by arranging various exhibitions, offering instruction about housekeeping and handicrafts, publishing educational literature, etc.
The new heyday of societies and the spread of popular handicraft skills arrived in the 1920s after Estonia became independent. In order to promote everything national, the new nation state added political commission to already strong societal readiness. .olk art, hitherto regarded as something lowly and vulgar, became the sign and manifestation of Estonian national ideas, to be introduced and taught to as many as possible. In 1927, with strong governmental backing, the joint venture Koduksit (Domestic Handicrafts) was established for commissioning, purchasing and trading (mostly exporting to the United States) the replica articles of traditional Estonian handicraft, mainly textiles. Two years later, another central organisation, the Estonian .olk Art and Craft Union (E.ACU), was founded, the aim of which was advancing handicraft at home, improving skills, promoting the idea and explaining its usefulness to a wider population The Union began publishing the magazine of applied art, handicrafts and household culture titled Kodutstus (Domestic Economics) in 1938. The flourishing of handicraft cultivated in societies came to an abrupt end in 1940. After annexation of Estonia the Soviets quickly banned, amongst other things, all organisations that formed the backbone of Estonian civic society; the E.ACU was disbanded as well. Worst of all, in the first post-WW II decade, forced collectivisation together with mass deportations brought about the loss of many farm households and, consequently, the very foundations of traditional rural handicraft.
In the 1950s women kept knitting mittens, socks and sweaters for their families, and the practically non-existent services compelled men to undertake various tasks of carpentry, etc. Their children, in the meantime, sawed stars and sheaves of rye out of plywood, or, at best, made snow shovels or bird feeders at school. Anything more refined by way of home culture was derided in public as manifestations of anti-Soviet bourgeois sentiment.
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UKU
In Soviet Estonia, after the initial shock caused by the worst Stalinist repressions of the late 1940s to the early 1950s, cultivating national handicraft became a sort of protest against communist ideology that was preaching internationalism. The central part in heritage protection was that of the Association of Handicraft Masters UKU (founded in 1966 and named after an Estonian household spirit), which consisted of the best craftsmen all over Estonia, and served as the banner ship for the production of Estonian souvenirs and household items in the national style. These masters in 1970, 16 UKU branches operated all over Estonia, providing work to 1500 artisans crafted artefacts either modelled on the originals deposited in various Estonian museums, or produced according to designs by modern artists in the style of folk art. As the majority of craftsmen were spread throughout Estonia, their craft often conveyed a feeling of the essence and charm of where they lived. The more so, as a lot of their articles were made by using old techniques and tools. The success of UKU products was increased by their affordability: they were popular gifts to friends at home and also abroad on the rare foreign visits.
Cloth slippers made in UKU after an example of festive footwear from the Island of Muhu
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Today, the study and instruction of the Estonian traditional handicraft in the most authentic sense of the term is centred in the Viljandi Culture Academys Department of National Handicraft. In addition to traditional womens handicraft, focused on various textile techniques, a brand new line of study into the field of traditional mens handicraft, that of vernacular construction, has emerged in Viljandi. Based on old methods of log-building and timber-crafting, these studies integrate ancient skills with modern principles of ecological construction, as well as with the regional approach towards Estonias diverse construction heritage. The programme of the Department strives to revive and make the old crafting techniques popular once again by training future schoolteachers and course instructors. The most gratifying target group of all is the children, as they easily grasp the playfulness and joy of doing things that are essential components in sustaining any crafting tradition. The students curriculum at the VCA thus includes practical training at a variety of crafting camps for children. All in all, the students and graduates of the Academy are involved in an amazing number of innovative undertakings in Estonia, from providing the big music festivals with tradition-based decorations to compiling board games on the themes of Estonian crafting heritage. In addition to the above, the networking of handicraft societies and a range of courses for all age groups is gradually picking up as well. In January 1992 the Estonian .olk Art and Craft Union was restored in Tallinn, and has since re-established branches all over the country. There is a training centre, and the National Costume Advisory Board has also sprung to new life.
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Old beer steins show an excellent harmony in form and are remarkably embellished. Both the lid and the handle are regularly decorated with notches, the handle often with a latticed wheel at the bottom end and a horse head on the top, with the sides done in pokerwork.
Ktkann on the northwestern coast and on the Western Islands, craftsmen made lidded mugs from lighter and darker alternating staves.
Double steins with two receptacles attached to the same handle, were produced for weddings. The bride and the groom had to drink from such a tricky mug together, without spilling a drop! Only thus could they secure a happy marriage for themselves. Several festive mugs had a double bottom, which was filled with dry peas or pellets when one topped such a mug, it made a rattling noise. A nice sound, but it also meant that nobody could have a drink in secret. On occasions where a larger amount of beer was consumed which meant on most occasions an important vessel was the piipkann (pipe flagon), a bulkier container with a long pipe-shaped spout. It was used to fetch beer from a vat and pour into steins. These were also decorated, but never to the same degree of richness as the drinking mugs.
What exactly the triple steins were used for, remains something of a mystery
Bending is another major technique in Estonian woodwork, used, in older times, when making shaft-bows for horse harnesses, sledge runners, wagon wheels and so on. A different group of bent artefacts, partly still in use today, are vessels made of thin curved boards all kinds of items from small round boxes for food to the huge winnowing screens. These artefacts are uniquely typical to Northern Europe, as no technique utilised in their production shows evidence of a Central European influence. Other elaborate wooden utensils were made as engagement or wedding presents. These included all the board-shaped distaffs and band-knives for weaving textile belts, and other practical tools carved by the bridegroom for his future wife. In addition to decorative, and probably magic patterns, the craftsman often carved the name of the recipient (i.e. the bride) and the date of the event into the gift. Although the custom is now virtually extinct, there are some rare examples of hand-carved engagement and wedding gifts from the 1950s and, rarer still, from the present day.
Contemporary Estonians are still rather fond of wooden things. Having gone through the phase of polyester and plastic, they find that furniture made of genuine wood adds dignity to their homes. And then again, a lot of Estonian men produce, either out of necessity or for the sheer pleasure of crafting, at least one wooden item during their lifetime, be it a boat or a spoon.
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Such ideas met with a warm welcome among many Estonians, since under the double rule of the Russian tsar and Baltic German nobility, traditional costume was taken to symbolise national self-awareness and aspirations for self-determination. Yet, there was an alternative approach present as well, with many urban Estonians subscribing to the idea of becoming Europeans, the faster the better and at any cost; this included giving up peasant clothing in favour of smart European urban attire. Combined with the gradual disappearance from the collective memory of the habit of wearing national costumes, the pursuit resulted in the everything goes with everything attitude by the 1920s, national costumes were rapidly degenerating into pseudonational carnival dress.
As a response, in the 1930s, textiles become one of the first handicraft branches to see the full-scale advent of scholarly folklorism. Ethnologists who graduated from the newly Estonian-language Tartu University did their best to work out the proper versions of Estonian parish costumes. Their efforts, epitomised by Helmi Kurriks Estonian National Costumes (1938), managed to expel the most gross manifestations of ignorance, but at the same time sanctioned set descriptions in a way comparable to that done with the Scottish Highlanders clan tartans by the Victorians. After WW II, the standardisation of national costumes was continued by the publication of several treatises with similar aims and titles, the most prominent of which Estonian National Costumes by Melanie Kaarma and Aino Voolmaa appeared in 1981.
Estonian National Costumes (1938)
(1981)
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Textile work in general in the post-Second World War Soviet period survived and developed along its natural path, largely thanks to the lean times. Hardships taught people to make something out of nothing, which is certainly an excellent accomplishment as well as being a significant feature to distinguish Estonians from the population of the western European welfare states. The imagination of local people here as well as their frugal habits or the skill to put everything to use, gave remarkably fine results at tough times. A good illustration of this is any creative and discreet reinterpretation of the traditional costume pattern, cut or style.
Vaip continues to enjoy a remarkable eminent position on the cognitive maps of many Estonians a venerated piece of textile work, it is considered a prestigious item of award on a range of occasions.
West Estonian blanket has become the traditional Grand Prix of the Prnu International Documentary and Anthropology .ilm .estival
In Estonian village society, carriage and sleigh blankets for travelling to a wedding or church served as a status symbol. In the mid-1980s an old lady, known for her beautiful embroidery, told the museum people a lovely story. I was quite young and sensitive in the time when embroidered coverlets became the height of fashion. Our house was so close to the church that we always went there on foot. Nobody could admire and praise the floral designs I had embroidered, because only a few had ever seen them at our house. One Christmas Eve I asked my husband to harness the horse. He gave me a weird look, wondering if I was suggesting that we should skip church. But I talked him into it and then spread the most beautiful blankets I had on the sleigh. Heavens, how all the women stared in awe and talked...
Lap covers and travel wraps remained important and in use well into the 1930s, but at the same time bedspreads and rugs, followed by wall hangings gradually became more popular. The ornaments created by previous generations continued to serve as examples, but the form and function of the textiles had changed. Thus, it became fashionable in the 1920s to embroider patterns from the midriff blouse of womens folk costume on carpets, while textile belts with traditional ornaments were sewn together into wall hangings.
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Estonian professional artists, too, have expressed their creativity in textiles throughout the last century. A sequence of marvellous works from the 1915 Ussikuningas (Serpent King) by Oskar Kallis to the textiles by the late grand old lady Elgi Reemets, such as her depiction of the first Estonian professional singer, Aino Tamm (1977), do not fall into the category of national handicraft, but represent professional art in national style that has emerged from the same roots.
The latest feat along similar lines is the Vapivaip (Coat of Arms) by Peeter Kuutma carpet studio, designed by Arne Mttus, in the State Council Hall of the Presidential Palace in Kadriorg.
All in all, compared with mens jobs, the changed living environment in Estonia has treated womens handicraft much more sparingly. Carpets, bedcovers, and to a lesser extent tablecloths and kerchiefs are still woven on looms in some households, and the rug carpets made of long strips of worn-out clothing add cosiness to many a room.
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The masters of a farmstead used to do everything themselves. He was a blacksmith and a carpenter, made his own barrels and kits, he also shoed his horses and made iron runners for his sledges, hammered his ploughs and harrows, crafted his household utensils, spoons, plates, mugs, piggins, boxes and cupboards, built his houses and stoves, and so on, and so forth. A rare thing it is today to come across one man who can see to all these tasks. In rural districts we find all kinds of artisans more than ever...
Estonian daily Postimees, 1892
Village artisans had in fact lived side by side with such industrious and skilful farmers for hundreds of years. The oldest and most respected among them was the job of a blacksmith the village community usually sustained an artisan whose job was often passed on from father to son. Many farmers, though, did simpler metalwork at home: on the island of Saaremaa, for instance, the majority of farmsteads also included a tiny smithy.
The age of, and respect for, the blacksmiths profession is indicated by the fact that the Estonian terms for later artisans include the word sepp smith, such as in puusepp carpenter, pttsepp cooper, kingsepp shoemaker, cobbler, rtsep tailor, vrsisepp poet, verse-wright, etc. A brightsmiths profession has usually been considered an urban artisanship, although there are notions of Estonian brooch-makers and silversmiths in rural areas from the Middle Ages. However, they became ever rarer along with the deterioration of the status of Estonian peasantry. In the late 19th century which is the period during which the majority of Estonian ethnographical collections were put together it was only such tasks as casting simpler tin, brass and bronze decorations in moulds that were done mostly by peasants themselves or local blacksmiths.
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Avinurme, one of the most outstanding crafting centres at the end of the 19th century, is still going strong with a substantial number of inhabitants employed in woodcraft.
Muhu chair
The best-known chair-makers in Estonia came from the island of Muhu; their work was distinctive and evolved into a particular type of chair, which came to be known as muhu tool (Muhu chair).
Originally a bridal chair this piece of furniture became known among Estonian peasants, in the 18th century, in the form of a wedding gift to the bride on which she was seated during the ritual tanutamine (caping of the bride). The frame-chair provides a significant example of a transfer of motifs from the feminine crafts to the masculine ones the ornament on the back-piece of a Muhu chair is a copy of the embroidery, but turned upside-down, on brides wedding apron from the same island. At the end of the 19th century, the peasantry, emerging both economically and intellectually from the tutelage of the manor, and gradually adopting the urban lifestyle, increasingly demanded more elaborate household goods produced by professional artisans. Cabinetmakers working in manor houses found new customers among richer peasants, as did makers of spinning wheels. Although some decades later, factory goods both furniture and textiles began driving out the hand-made items, many skills nevertheless survived amongst the people.
Most of Estonian boys are initiated into the basics of carpentry, including turning and simpler joining, already at technology lessons at primary school.
Woodwork classes at the Rocca-al-Mare School in Tallinn
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Potters
Unlike the Latvians and, even more so, Lithuanians, Estonians did neither manufacture nor utilise pottery during most of the last four hundred years or so. Instead of earthen- or stoneware, metal cooking pots together with lathe-turned or cooper-made wooden tableware and storage vessels were used. Some sort of change arrived only in the second half of the 19th century, a period that witnessed the foundation of several large potteries in the Setu villages around Petseri (Pechory), that had the deposits of clay with satisfactory quality available nearby. It was from these pottery shops that the peddling potisetud (Pot-Setus) obtained their goods simple, scantily decorated bowls and cups which they then sold or exchanged for rags for paper mills.
In the footsteps of the Setu potteries of old, several clayshops together with the traditions of pottery fairs and peddlers caravans have been revived in southeast Estonia.
When she strides, she clatters, when she travels, she twinkles, when she goes, she glistens
(runo-song from Mustjala on Saaremaa) Of all the things that have survived from what previous generations have used, jewellery is among the most resilient to age. All around Estonia, archaeological excavations or farmers ploughing their fields keep unearthing pins or brooches or some other kind of adornments that have been buried in the ground for centuries. This kind of information offers a slight chance for scholars to learn about the taste canons of Estonians beyond the range of literary sources. These pieces of cast, hammered and minted metal bear witness to the extensive and bustling trade network Estonia was involved in at the beginning of the second millennium AD. Boat rivets in the burials, Arabic coins and Oriental jewellery in the hoards, all relate to the traffic on the NevaVolkhovVolga waterway as well as the famous route from the Varangians to the Greeks that took local sailors and oarsmen to the distant lands of the Great Bolgar, Constantinople and the Arab Khwarazm. After all, Northern Estonia ranks only second to the Island of Gotland, concerning the number of Arab coins found in a limited area in the whole Northern Europe.
Basso-rilievo Estonians on the console of the triumphal arch of the Karja Church
Penannular brooches from Kostivere trove (early 13th century)
Certain types of ornaments were distinctive to particular nationalities in the 13th and 14th century Estonia. .or instance, the persons depicted in the bas relief of the interior of the Karja Church one of the earliest rural churches of Estonia are thought to be the Estonians, judging by the conspicuous penannular brooches they are wearing.
The share of silver and other metal ornaments in Estonian clothing has been diminishing ever since ancient times. The abundance of metal that lasted several centuries after the conquest before the devastating wars of the 16th and 17th centuries the churches received large donations of money and jewellery not only from town-dwellers and the nobility, but also from wealthier peasants gradually retreated into ever more remote regions, mostly as a result of the clothes becoming more European and the general circumstances more miserable.
The German Enlightenment man of letters Johann Christoph Petri (17621851), describing the life of Estonian peasants in the early 19th century, found that the silver jewellery of the peasant women jingled so loudly that it could be heard from afar as if a horse with sleigh bells was approaching.
The Estonians who still continue to own considerable varieties of silver jewellery including twined and meshed necklaces clearly showing the influence of the Orthodox church tradition are the Setus in the remote south-east.
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Unlike textiles and woodwork, jewellery of the Estonian peasants was usually made by professional artificers who quite often were not ethnic Estonians. In spite of the fact that the ornaments were mostly purchased or traded the conical brooch and the flat brooch, for instance, both considered to be genuinely Estonian types of adornments, were introduced by the non-Estonian guild jewellers in the 18th century one is still justified to speak in terms of Estonian-style jewellery. Aesthetic preferences naturally got mixed when the gold- and silversmiths had ideas of their own; it was however up to the client, a peasant woman or man, to accept or reject a design. It was that sort of practice that led to Estonian brooches being decorated with Medieval Gothic imagery, or with rich renaissance mauresques. Strong traditionally, jewellery art today has managed to retain a lot of its originality and dignity in Estonia. Could this be explained by the fact that the designers and artisans have always been professionals?
Richly decorated ring brooch bearing the name Michgel Vnkael (Michael the Pigheaded) from 1587 Ring brooch with mauresque ornament (16th17th cc.)
Ussikevru (Serpent bracelet, 1981) by Tiiu Aru Brooch Minu Eestimaa (My Estonia, 1984) by Krista Laos
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It is not known whether their grievances were met, but pistelmakers disappear from the written sources during the 17th century, and the Estonian-run professional leatherworking does not surface again before the end of 19th century. The professional discrimination was not confined only to the towns. As urban gold- and silversmiths made a good profit by selling Bauernsilber (German for peasant silver) to the country people, they did everything in their power to stop illegal (i.e. not guild members) artisans who worked at the manor houses and other rural centres.
Competitors on the market, the craftsmen and traders of Estonian origin became quite a nuisance for the German guild authorities. In the early 16th century Tallinn, for instance, the burghers demanded that the non-German small dealers and pistelmakers be chased with dogs from the market and replaced by civil traders from Germany.
The Triskelion-master
Since Estonians were still called neophytes in the 18th century, it is no wonder that the 16th17th century peasant adornments, e.g. the twelve brooches of the Triskelion-master series, found in West Estonia, boast symbols belonging in the pre-conquest period. Having operated in the mid-16th century, the Triskelion-master is presumed to be Estonian mostly because of the unique, half-pagan dcor of his brooches that completely differed from the urban varieties of the time.
Guild-based handicraft regulations persisted in Estonian towns, almost unchanged, until the end of the 18th century. It was the new trades regulation imposed by the Russian Imperial Town Law of 1785 that started to curb the monopoly held by the German guild masters in the principal fields of handicraft henceforth every artisan had the right to practice his trade. The final blow for the old order was dealt in 1866 with the abolition of all craft guild privileges, which led to the gradual disintegration of the rest of these organisations. The last craft guilds, though, continued to exist well into the 20th century, when they were gradually taken over by Estonians or turned into a kind of social welfare organisations for the retired craftsmen.
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A number of the great names of early Estonian national applied art e.g. Vanda Juhasoo, Juuli Suits, Alma Koskel, Anni Varma who started out establishing handicraft courses and schools in the early 20th century, had received their education at the Helsinki Ateneum art school in .inland. In addition to such direct influences, the general inspiration provided by Estonias kindred nation across the Gulf of .inland whose national awakening had occurred somewhat earlier, was of essential importance.
Products of the State Arts and Crafts School
Inevitably, the existing trade-related and workshopbased instruction was gradually replaced by public applied art schooling: 1914 saw the establishment of the Tallinn Arts and Crafts School that taught leatherwork, bookbinding, decorative painting and sculpture, graphic art and printing, textile art, ceramics, metal and glass art. Re-named the State Arts and Crafts School in 1924, it had soon acquired a central role in the instruction of nearly every field of applied arts practised in or introduced to Estonia.
Along with the establishment of Estonian-language university programmes of ethnology and folklore, the 1920s saw the nation-wide encouragement of the National Romanticist style applied art that would rely on original Estonian motifs. This was accompanied by an unprecedented interest on the part of leading Estonian artists in creating fancy sketches and designs for all areas of (applied) art and handicraft, from furniture design to leatherwork. What is more, they did this without having the slightest worry about their reputation as professional architects, painters or sculptors.
A mark of quality of its own was the handicraft production of the workshop of Eduard Taska head of the department of bookbinding and leather working at the State Arts and Crafts School as well as that of the industrial enterprise Taska established by him in 1933. Estonian applied art as a whole, as well as its teaching, reached a new level in the 1930s. Besides the crafts that had been copying the vanishing original folk art and had borrowed its motifs (the first Estonian union of applied artists of 1928 was called, rather indicatively, Decor), a fully professional expressive applied art emerged, and in 1932 the most influential organisation of the innovators, the Association of Applied Artists (RaK), was founded. An excellent example of the new wave of applied art with elements of .unctionalism and Art Dco is the versatile oeuvre of Adamson-Eric (Erich Karl Hugo Adamson). .rom the 1920s on, his numerous works in a highly personal style and various fields of applied art textile, metal and leather art, ceramics continued to reflect the development in the field in Estonia during more than forty years.
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The annexation of Estonia in 1940 soon brought with it the nationalisation of the applied arts schools and studios and the adjustment of the instruction to the canons of Soviet ideology. The spirit of the times was well expressed at the opening ceremony of the Tallinn State Applied Arts Institute in 1944, where the delegate of the Estonian Communist Party made clear that: ... creating real works of art in our socialist society is only possible by mastering and fully grasping the partys teaching. The times of political repressions from the end of 1940s to the beginning of 1950s were the toughest test of all for the fledgling Estonian applied arts. Direct persecution of several leading artists accused of formalism and nationalism, accompanied with the propagation of vacuous socialist internationalism, did not cease until the death of Stalin in 1953. Evidently, however, the established traditions proved to be strong enough to maintain Estonia among the strongest applied arts centres in the Soviet Union and the whole of Northern Europe, this with regard to the number as well as the high standard of the taught subjects, such as ceramics, glass-, metal-, leatherwork and artistic textile. Besides local students, numerous applied artists from Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and other republics of the Soviet Union acquired their education at the Estonian State Art Institute formed in 1951 from several higher art educational establishments. 42
ARS
Three decades from the pre-war boom of Estonian applied art and crafts, the Khrushchev Thaw in the Soviet establishment made it possible for Estonian artists and crafts masters to make another attempt along similar lines. Under the auspices of the newly established Association of Master-Artists ARS, various items of jewellery and other artefacts were produced, and these have later come to be regarded as classics. Unlike the national handicraft par excellence cultivated at UKU, the ARS products were more focused on the artist the small number of copies did not rely so much on traditional ornamentation and topics. Yet, neither were the products of ARS quite spared from the influence by folk art that at times materialised in a rather surprising manner. An exciting example here is the metamorphosis of the grapevine motif of the medieval stone carvings through the strawberry-twig ornament on the back of a peasants chair on to the clothes clasp made in ARS.
Quite new perspectives for the instruction and practice of applied arts opened with the restoration of the Republic of Estonia in 1991. Already the first years of independence saw the (re-)establishment of several centres of study, as well as intense contacts with neighbouring countries and beyond. In 2000, after an interval of almost half a century, higher applied art education
returned to Tartu with the founding of Tartu Art College. An important centre for applied art studies in todays Estonia, concerning methods of work, applications of techniques and general ideology, TAC has adopted an approach close to that of the Arts and Crafts movement and the Bauhaus: functionality and regard for material should be given as much attention as the form.
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The curricula of the Colleges departments of furniture, textile and leather art emphasise the importance of acquiring traditional working techniques, which provide the right touch of technique necessary for any artistic self-expression. Yet, as a reminiscence of the past centralisation, the hub for research and education of applied arts in Estonia remains in Tallinn. The .aculty of Design of the Estonian Academy of Art which includes the departments of jewellery and blacksmithing, ceramics, glass, leather art and textile, continue to provide education for the students from both Estonia and abroad.
One of the many ancient skills in danger of oblivion in Estonia that the staff and students of the TAC have thought worthwhile to revive, is the Oriental method of hand-block printing of fabric.
In addition to the above, the nearly one-hundred-years-old Estonian academic art teaching tradition has once again turned to research scientifically its peasant prehistory. The newly-established (2002) Chair of Traditional Art at the EAA sees its aim in researching our heritage as a source of inspiration and examining its function in the framework of the modern art discourse.
Glasswork by Eeva Ksper-Lennuk
Tradition-inspired jewellery by Krt Summatavet, head of the EAAs Chair of Traditional Art
This is hardly surprising, in our times of unprecedented hodgepodge of ideologies, especially when one realises that the subconscious of the predominantly second or third generation townspeople of Estonia still largely associates with fixed residence, particular locality and Estonia in general. Hence the occasionally surfacing interest of modern applied artists in their one-time heritage the language of form, symbols and emblems of their rural ancestors.
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In ancient times, belt patterns were thought so powerful that they would protect you against the evil eye and a number of maladies related to witchcraft, including a snakebite. In the 17th century, when the new rulers of Estonia, local administrators of the Protestant Kingdom of Sweden, opened schools for peasant Estonians, an alternative meaning of writing started to take over. At these schools people learned to write digits and letters, and to compose numbers and words from them. That was a new system where every sign counted in order to convey a particular meaning; on the other hand, letters had to be grouped in correct sequences to render an idea, in most cases a single letter remained meaningless.
Apparently a farm-mark, a symbol traditionally marking ownership, conveyed a considerably larger amount of information. An owners mark such as this, represented the whole family and the magic sign contained quite a particular power. These marks provided the user with strength and good health, protected against evil, and, in addition, quite simply looked pretty as an ornament or decoration. .irst, when school education spread, Estonians started to write and read in two ways: writing based on the alphabet and writing based on traditional symbols. Yet, as time went on, the alphabet, richer in signs, gradually gained the upper hand. And along with that, signs and symbols changed; with the arrival of the new, linear writing, the old way of reading inevitably moved into the background, and the knowledge of the meaning of old kiri faded. An essential role in the substitution of the old way of writing with the new one was played by the Moravian Brethren a movement of religious awakening originating from Herrnhut in Saxony, which began to spread among Estonian peasants in the 1730s. It is possible that it was only this movement that truly awakened many Estonians to the actual acceptance of the Christian faith.
Wooden masks for Martinmas celebrations (19th c.)
Pen-and-Pencil box: old patterns decorating a case for keeping tools used for producing new patterns.
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Unfortunately for the ancient traditions, though, the freshly found religious zeal was often manifested in neglecting and actively rooting out everything pagan, be it folk poetry or traditional music, or vain, such as national costumes or household artefacts decorated with ancient ornaments. In their stead, the Brethren encouraged the spread of psalm singing, plain clothes and pious written culture among the peasants. While there are numerous historical accounts of sacred objects and places statues of fertility spirits, sacrificial stones and gardens, and other places of worship in Estonian peasant households, by the mid-19th century, the efforts of the Moravian Brethren and the Pietist Lutheran clergy to eradicate every heathen or semi-heathen phenomenon from the minds of their countrymen was bearing results. Estonians, too, started to consider services in church or sermons in the meeting house to be the only acceptable forms of worship and the last remnants of the probably pre-Christian phasenurk (sacred corner a kind of home altar in the opposite corner from a stove) disappeared from the peasants living rooms. Together with the retreat of the sacral from everyday life, the knowledge of the meaning of protective and auspicious signs and symbols faded.
Eucharist cloth with Baroque embroidery from the Tarvastu church (middle 18th c. or earlier)
Mull meeles seisab alati mu kallis kodumaa (My beloved Homeland is always on my mind) mnemonic wall decoration from the National Awakening period
The sacral corner with its kibot (icon cupboard) and sacrament linen survived longest in the houses of the Orthodox Setu people. 47
By the time the Estophile Baltic Germans and later the first Estonian linguists and ethnographers began taking an interest in the old writings of the county people, they were often presented with popular pseudo-interpretations instead of the genuine traditional meanings. Provided the scholars new-way-of-writing background and their informants old-way-of-writing background would have allowed for any reciprocal understanding at all. Yet, even when the original meaning has vanished into oblivion, the messages hidden in the shaping beauty and decorations still render a sense of something mystical. The same way as feelings expressed through song in a foreign tongue can still charm and impress a listener, even one who is unable to understand the meaning of the words.
The saying of our forefathers, Sdant ei saa sundida (The human heart cannot be forced), tells a lot about Estonians doggedness when it comes to the question of freedom of choice and preference the people of this country continue to look toward both the museum and the wider world for inspiration. Hopefully, this healthy attitude is not on the wane.
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