Mezen Painting

The Mezen painting technique emerged in the mid-eighteenth century CE and was concentrated in the village of Palashchelye in the Mezen district of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. Mezen-painted horses and elks are easily recognizable with their red, rectangular bodies, spider-like legs, intricate black patterns, and feature an ornamental spider web. Mezen artists painted almost every item they used in their daily lives: spinning wheels, chests, trunks, cabinets, and utensils. However, the most common objects adorned with such patterns were items made from birch bark, such as boxes, small chests, and tuesoks (traditional Russian bags made of birch bark). The horses and elks, depicted in a small, repetitive manner, sliding amidst geometric ornaments, create a sense of movement. When you rotate a round Mezen-painted box in your hands, it creates the impression of the animals running, resulting in a primitive form of animation.

An item painted with the Mezen technique was created in several stages and with various tools. Before applying the pattern, the untreated item was painted with ochre, which was in the old days applied with a tiska (a wooden stick with frayed ends). Then, an outline was made with soot using a bird feather, and only after that was the pattern painted with a fine brush made from human hair. Finally, a thin layer of linseed oil varnish was applied to make the item more durable, which also gave the design a golden color.

What makes Mezen painting particularly remarkable is that peasant craftsmen signed their works, which is uncommon for such crafts. Thus, we know the names of the families of the masters who were engaged in Mezen painting in the nineteenth century CE: the Aksyonovs, Kuzmins, Fedotovs, Shishovs, and Novikovs.