Crimson & Cobalt & White

Crimson is the Zhostovo rose — the deep vivid crimson of the most characteristic Zhostovo rose petal. Zhostovo painting: Zhostovo decorative painting (Жостовская роспись — from the village of Zhostovo — Жостово — in the Mytishchi District of Moscow Oblast — approximately 35 km north of Moscow — where the tradition was established in the 1820s-1830s by the Vishnyakov family) is the most internationally celebrated Russian lacquerware tradition — producing the most immediately beautiful and most widely collected Russian folk art objects: the Zhostovo tray (Жостовский поднос — a metal tray — typically oval, round, or rectangular — coated in multiple layers of black lacquer — and then painted in oil paints with a characteristic bouquet of large, boldly rendered flowers — centered on a cluster of roses, peonies, and dahlias surrounded by the most delicately rendered smaller accent flowers — tulips, forget-me-nots, morning glory, and the most characteristic Zhostovo botanical motifs — against the dramatically black lacquer background). The Zhostovo rose: the central and most important motif in every Zhostovo composition is the rose — the most thickly painted, most brilliantly crimson, and most boldly rendered flower in the bouquet — typically 3-5 large roses in the center of the composition, each painted in the most vivid crimson-to-scarlet with the most characteristic Zhostovo technique of layered highlights (the petals painted in multiple layers from the most deeply saturated dark crimson base through gradually lighter and more luminous crimson tones to the most brilliant near-white highlight at the petal tip). Cobalt is the Gzhel cobalt — the medium vivid cobalt of the Gzhel painted porcelain. Gzhel: the Gzhel ceramic district (Гжель — the group of approximately 30 villages in the Ramensky District of Moscow Oblast — centered on the village of Gzhel — approximately 60 km southeast of Moscow — on the banks of the Gzhelka River, which gave the district its name) has been the most important Russian ceramic production center since at least the 14th century (the first documentary mention of the Gzhel potters occurs in a charter of Ivan Kalita in 1328 CE — the most ancient documentary reference to any Russian regional craft tradition). The blue-and-white Gzhel: while Gzhel potters have produced a wide variety of ceramic types throughout their history (the most elaborate polychrome 18th-century majolica — the most sophisticated Russian ceramic of the early modern period — was produced in Gzhel in the 1750s-1780s), the blue-and-white tradition (established in the early 19th century, under the influence of Dutch Delftware and Chinese porcelain imported through the Baltic trade) became the most internationally recognizable and most commercially successful Gzhel product — the most ubiquitous and most immediately identifiable Russian folk ceramic in the world. The Gzhel cobalt painting: the most characteristic feature of Gzhel blue-and-white decoration (distinguishing it from the most similar Chinese and European blue-and-white traditions) is the most boldly calligraphic, the most expressively fluid, and the most spontaneously applied brushwork — the Gzhel painters apply the cobalt oxide underglaze paint with the most broad, the most freely moving, and the most characteristically Russian folk-art brushstrokes — creating the most immediately beautiful and the most expressively vivid blue-and-white decoration in any ceramic tradition. White is the Gzhel ground — the pure luminous white of the Gzhel porcelain body. The Gzhel white clay body: the specific pure, luminous white of the traditional Gzhel porcelain is produced from a combination of local (Gzhel district) kaolinite clays with imported feldspars and quartzes — fired at approximately 1280°C in a reduction atmosphere (to produce the most characteristically luminous and the most translucent white — the specific reduction firing producing a slightly warmer, more ivory-to-cream-tinted white than the most purely neutral white of the most refined European hard-paste porcelain, but significantly more luminous and more translucent than the most typical earthenware or stoneware whites). The white as ground: in the Gzhel blue-and-white tradition, the pure white of the porcelain body is not merely a background but the most essential positive element of the composition — the specific pure white of the undecorated areas of the Gzhel teapot, vase, or plate is as important visually as the most vivid cobalt blue of the painted decoration — the specific combination of vivid cobalt on pure white being the most immediately recognizable and the most internationally celebrated color relationship in the entire Russian folk ceramic tradition.