Folk Art of Uzbekistan

Since far back Uzbek decorative and applied art has merited good fame. The historical conditions, in which the culture of the Uzbek people advanced, predetermined applied art a particular role. Over the centuries popular traditions have been created in techniques and art. Applied art is domestic in essence, whose main indication is the close connection between artistic creation and material needs. The organic merging of the artistic with what was needed for practical purposes made up an indivisible unity of elevated artistic and socio-practical functions. The works of applied art are distinguished by expediency, unity of shape and design.

Printed cloth
Making printed cloth was very popular among the peoples who inhabited the region of present Uzbekistan. Printed table-cloths, curtains, bed-spreads, shawls, high-quality cloth for women's garments, various coverlets (including horse-cloth), and even funeral cerements and other piece and metrical printed articles performed a utilitarian function and served as a daily-round ornament.
Bukhara and adjacent villages were famed for making things of this kind. Beautiful articles were also made in Urgut, Shakhrisabz, Samarkand, Katta-Kurgan, Ferghana and Tashkent.

Carpet making
The tradition of carpet weaving in Uzbekistan is ancient. Carpets, mainly woven by numerous home-workers in rural areas, are perfect in technique and design. Three types of carpets are common in Uzbekistan: short pile carpets gilyam, long pile carpets julkhirs, and palahs.

The characteristic feature of short pile carpets is their red-brown tint, lit up by the harmony of light-colored details of the principal medallions, which usually appear in geometrical shapes.

Since ancient times, carpets with long pile, julkhirs, have been favored by rural inhabitants. This kind of carpet weaving was unknown to other peoples of Central Asia. Nowadays it enjoys wide popularity for its ornamentation and correspondence to modern trends in the world carpet making. Julkhirs are monumental in composition and simplicity of design, and are shown in color.

Palahs fabrics are diverse in Uzbekistan. These include: kokhma - a fabric, plain striped in various colors; terma and gadjari, a fabric woven in pattern with different methods of "crisscross overlap" technique and ornamented with rows of small geometrical vegetal and zoomorphic motifs; and arabi - a cloth, which is woven in the so-called ‘clearance' method. All kinds of palahs fabrics are sometimes supplemented with the superposed design method. This complex and arduous method, which resembles embroidery, is called beshkashta. Over the past 50 years, the method of weaving and ornamenting arabi palahses has been practiced on a large scale in all Central Asian Republics.

Ceramics
In Uzbekistan ceramics hold a prominent place among the numerous forms of popular applied art. The first specimens of earthenware discovered in Uzbekistan go back to antiquities, and in all times fine pieces of fancy ceramic articles were made with uncommon expressiveness and laconism.

Dishes - lagans,bowls - pialas and kossas, vases, jugs, korchagas-khums of various sizes, ranging from huge to miniature ones, handy and refined in shape, were in great demand for centuries. They are notable for the skillfulness and beauty of their shape, ornamentation, the harmony and sense of proportion in the use of colors.

Small plastics in Uzbek stoneware are represented by traditional toys made in the shape of fantastic zoomorphic statuettes, and by genre souvenirs, which enjoy wide popularity. The earthenware toys are unforgettable. No matter whether they are the traditional crimson-yellow whistles made in the village of Uba (Ferghana Valley), or the bright folklore statuettes, small pieces of sculpture, full of lyric and humor, from Samarkand: in all of them tastes of the Uzbeks for bright and joyful decoration are displayed.


Embroidery
Supplementing other kinds of architectural and decorative arts such as ganch (gypsum) and wood-carving, embroidered articles are widely utilized to adorn dwellings and small household articles. Embroidery was practiced on a large scale on everyday and holiday dress.

In the 19th century Bukhara, Nurata, Shakhrisabz, Samarkand, Jizak, Tashkent, Pskent and Ferghana were major centers of embroidery. It is worth mentioning is that embroidery was exclusively women's art.

Fabrics
The most attractive thing in Uzbek fabrics is the beauty of their color and the pure dyes which are applied in delicate combinations. The coloring is driven to the utmost stress, either resorting to sharp contrasts or delicate harmony. The harmony of colors of the Uzbek national fabrics implicates the gold of sands, the green of valleys, the blue of lakes, the southern sunset, the blossoming of peach and apricot orchards in Uzbekistan.

Gold embroidery
This art flourished in Bukhara in the middle of the 19th century, where talented masters embroidered splendid attire of Emir and his suite. Embroidery in gold was generally performed by men, who usually handed the trade over to their sons.

Men's robes, turbans, skullcaps, shalvars (kind of pants) and footwear; women' clothes including gowns, robes - kaltacha, bands worn on the forehead - peshanahand, shawls, high boots and slippers, all of those were the garments embroidered in gold and silver. Ornaments of the palaces interiors (chepraki) as well as horse cloth were abundantly embroidered in gold interspersed with semi-precious stones and small metal domes kubba.

Plaster carving - ganch

Methods of ornamental construction and sense of plastic are based on artistic property of local construction materials widely known throughout the Middle and Near East. These include varieties of alabaster, or ganch, wood, stone, and ceramics. The world-famed architectural monuments of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Shakhrisabz display the high professionalism of painters, architects, ornamentalists, calligraphers, carvers and ceramists of Middle Ages.

Jewelry
Jewelry is one of the best developed kinds of craftsmanship in Uzbekistan. This art, far back widely popular and rich in traditions of antiquity, is being further developed by contemporary artisans.

Jewelers, or zargars, made articles basically of silver and gold combining precious metals with various sparkling gems: rubies, emeralds, sapphires, such semi-precious, lustreless and opaque jewels (bright and rich in tone) as pearls, turquoise, cornelian, jasper and corals, as well as brilliant multi-stained glass, mastic beads, which were in use from the second half of the 19th century.

Knives
A peculiar branch of artistic metal working in Uzbekistan is that of making knives with a pointed blade, usually kept in leather sheaths ornamented with metal plates, embroidery, applique, and paintings. These knives, called guldor pichok, are nicely ornamented knives varying in shape. The blades have local peculiarities: they may be narrow or wide, straight-lined or curved. Their hafts also differ, varying from one-piece to composite, wooden or ivory, inlaid or painted.

Leather
Curriers skillfully mastered different ways of dressing durable leather. They had knowledge of the secrets of natural vegetal tanning and dyeing, and therefore were rewarded with fine elastic leather. Bukhara and Samarkand curriers dressed the famous turquoise-green shagreen made of donkey and horse hides. Delicate dyed Morocco was made of goat and sheep skin; for close dyed Russian leather cattle hides were used, while different raw hide, such as suede, was dressed from sheep skin.

Metal chasing
Chased-copper articles were popular among the inhabitants of Uzbekistan since archaic times. They were valued for their practical use and decorativeness. Chased-copper vessels were displayed on the shelves of open built-in cupboards as part of human homes.

The local style of chasing has come into being during a long period, which is characterized by the distinctive shapes of the articles, as well as by the techniques and artistic methods. Uzbek chasing represents various ways of engraving. The more deep engraving is called kandakori, the less deep-clean engraving is known as chizma. In addition to engraving' Uzbek masters use notch chasing, shabaka.

Wood carving and painting
In Uzbekistan wood carving is executed on a wide range of objects from massive beams for ceilings to tiny children's amulets. The development of this art in the past was linked to ornamenting constructions and local architectural details, where the overlap post-and-beam system already presupposed using wooden materials on a large scale. In the traditional architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries, as the originals illustrate, at times carved wood was the sole element used for decorative purposes; objects to be ornamented were doors, shutters, gates, beams for ceilings, and pillars used in terraces - aivan and shiipan.

In the traditional architecture, painting on wood was mainly conjuncted with ornamenting structures on ceilings, stalactite-like eaves, caps of pillars for palaces, temples and splendid mansions, coupled with decorating various objects for the interior.

The systems of ceilings varying from simple structure of beams and bars with their strict forms to complex many-tier beam and caisson structures, dictated various frieze, border and medallion forms of decorating ceilings.

Classical motifs are created in the islimi and girikh styles, and the artist's objective is to visually lighten the architectural structure and eliminate the feeling of being constrained by low ceilings.