Pronin A., Pronin B. Russian Folk Arts

A. S. Barnes and Company, 1975. — 212 p.In Russia before Peter the Great, countless peasant artisans regularly produced woodcarvings, ceramics, tiles, toys, weaving*, embroideries, and many other objects both decorative and utilitarian for use by themselves and their families. After this, though, the rise of a factory system and the intrusion into Russia of bourgeois Western tastes—both, ironically, the result of reforms by Peter, himself a great patron of the crafts —conspired first to dilute the authenticity of, and finally to drive off the market, handicrafts that had existed in Russia for centuries. The Pronins' fascinating volume documents for the first time in English the story of this use, development, and decline.