Exhibition "Fans swing" in the Russian Museum of Ethnography
The exhibition features more than 80 fans from the museum collection
today, 23 December, the Russian Museum of Ethnography (St. Petersburg, Engineering, 4 /1) opens the exhibition "Fans swing", representing 80 traditional fans. Total collection of fans SEM has 130 storage units. This small collection tells the story of existence of a variety of materials, design and purpose of fans among the peoples of Russia and neighboring countries.
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Among the exhibits main part consists of items that are in the full sense of the word fan is not as well served nous for the hearth, "mahalkami" from dust and insects, for fanning the fire of inflation in the hearth among the peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East.
modern concept of the word "fan", " fan-shaped "and the phrase" a fan-shaped "due to the manner of folding fans. Fans of this type have appeared in Japan in VIII - IX centuries by. Er. At the beginning of the XVI century folding fans began to produce in China. From the Celestial Empire, they soon came to Portugal. Europeans have appreciated the constructive idea and design and in subsequent centuries started to give them preference.
Meanwhile, the story of fans of other types of numbers millennium. Since ancient times, people perceived as a breath of a sacred action that can give life, give power to change fate. Trying to cause a blow, they created various designs of leaves, grass, feathers. For centuries, fans remained companions for human life and after her, as evidenced by archaeological finds in the tombs of ancient Egypt, Etruria, and China. Descriptions of the fans are found in myths and legends, and fans that have preserved archaic forms, materials and decoration, still live in a culture of many peoples.
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shape of the fan is always fraught with symbolic meaning. For example, a fan in the shape of the flag in many cultures is associated with this sacred symbol of supreme power. Fluttering flag is an attribute of the god of air and wind Vayu, which occupies a central place in the pantheon of Hindu gods.
Veer-Axe, by analogy with this kind of bladed weapons can be regarded as a symbol of sovereignty of that is associated with the ancient gods of the sun and storm winds, in the Hindu tradition - the god of fire Agni.
a fan-shaped-sheet motif unblown lotus reads: Hinduism is the symbol of the divine and immortal in man, a synonym perfection. In Mayan culture the lotus embodied the idea of rebirth. Folding fan-cockade, the screen is in expanded form in a circle, has a second name - "peacock's tail." In the culture of the peoples of ancient India, and later in Iran, he is a symbol of the all-seeing sun and eternal cosmic cycles.
folding fans to sign level function are good wishes. In Japan, where they were invented, their design symbolizes a person's wishes to disclose their gifts and talents as disclosed given him a fan.
The collection of Russian Museum of Ethnography collected traditional fans of the Eurasian peoples XIX - XX centuries. This collection describes the life of the peoples of the Russian Empire as the Abkhaz, Adygeys, Azeris, the Ainu, Buryat, Georgian, Kabardian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Negidals, Nenets, Nivkh, Orochi, Ossetians, samagiry, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Khanty, Mansi, and Yakutia. Collection complement the fan from Afghanistan, Iran, China, Korea and Japan.
Most fans collection SEM acquired on expeditions, some received as gifts from private individuals. So, in 1919, the Commissioner of Trade and Industry gave the museum a collection of Chinese fan of Dr. Peter Viktorovich Shchusev (Petrograd) in 1921 - the Chinese fans of the Museum of Art (Petrograd) in 1948 - dozens of fans from the Museum of Peoples of the USSR (Moscow) after its disbandment . Ethnographers collected and studied information on the use of different types of fans among the peoples of Russia.
The collection of SEM are a fan to blow the fire. Many people worshiped fire as a deity, as a living being and worshiped him. With the cult of the cult of the hearth-fire is linked, in which a fan is a sacred ochazhnym attribute. Home was identified with the concept of "life" and there was a curse more terrible than: "Yes, extinguished the fire in your fireplace».
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Veera to blow the fire in the collection of SEM are fans, flags, fans sekiroobraznoy shape, round birch bark fans and fans of feathers that existed among the peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East.
Fans of Siberia from the wings of birds are a rare type of mufflers, known in ancient legends and myths. Feathers in the traditional culture of many peoples symbolized magical link with the spiritual world, divine power and patronage, and often ascending prayer.
Hair vane from the tails of horses, yaks and other animals are known in the culture Eurasian peoples for millennia. In Buddhist culture, yak tail fan of a Tantric symbol, an attribute of Bodhisattva.
The collection of SEM stored dozens of webs, which are in different regions - the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberia - used to flush insects. In winter, the Siberian hunters a fan cover his tracks in the snow. However, it was not only a practical purpose. Thus, in the Yakut legends based on the idea of a cosmological order, according to which the horse hair symbolizes the connection to another world, a symbol of fertility.
During Yakut New Year's holiday Ysyakh for sprinkling koumiss fire and land use fan with white hair. During the ceremony of blessing "algys" dark a fan of horse hair clean and white - bless.
In the early twentieth century, from East Turkestan to the museum came from the tail vane yak. One of them is attached to the staff dervish, who used it to clean from insects wherever he was going to sit down so as not to harm them.
Like other products of traditional art, fans are extremely stable, constantly repeating decorative and ornamental solution, meaning a continuous connection of past, present and future. Not accidentally, in many cultures, the fan is a symbol of life.
In 1980 began a long work on the attribution, classification, and restoration of the fans from the collection of the SEM, which is now largely completed in time. Have been restored more than 80 items, which are represented at the exhibition dedicated to the 30-year anniversary of the Russian Museum of Ethnography of the artist and restorer of the highest category, Helena Petrovna Jankowski.
exhibition runs until January 30, 2011.
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