Having visited the exhibition of building materials and technologies “ StroyExpoCrimea ” in Yalta, we, like any person who visited Crimea for the first time, decided not to sit in the hotel in vain, but to devote our free time to exploring local attractions. Taking advantage of one of the popular excursion routes offered to guests of the peninsula, we found ourselves in an amazing place - the former possession of the Vorontsov family, and now the Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve, the Vorontsov Palace.
The Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve was created in 1990.
The museum-reserve includes: the Vorontsov Palace-Museum, the Alupka Park-Monument of Landscape Art and the Massandra Palace-Museum of Alexander III. On the territory of the museum-reserve there are numerous cultural heritage monuments that reflect romantic trends in palace and park architecture of the first half of the 19th century. The palace complex of the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka, consisting of five buildings, was built in 1828-1848. designed by the English architect Edward Blore (1789-1879) for the Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Territory, Count Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov (1782-1856). The state rooms of the palace, decorated in the style of a traditional English interior, have almost completely retained their original decoration.
The unique originality of the Blue Living Room is given by the finest stucco ornament of flowers and leaves, made under the direction of the serf master Roman Furtunov. The decorative decoration of the palace's cabinets with valuable wood species is reminiscent of the decoration of knights' halls in medieval castles. In the Winter Garden, the ficus repens climbing along the walls of the old plants has been preserved, and its flower beds are decorated with ceramic tiles that look reminiscent of the mural tiles popular in the 18th century. I don’t know whether they belong to the original decoration or are a modern replica (after all, the castle had to go through a lot during its almost two-hundred-year history). But we can say with confidence that the use of such tiles along with Florentine fountains, vases and sculptures made of Carrara marble is very characteristic of that era.
"Ant" in the 17th-18th centuries.
called transparent glaze. The epithet “ant” was also used in a narrower sense, to define products with a transparent green glaze, the color of grass-ant. In Rus', tiles have been known since the 16th century, but then they were one-color and were called “red”.
The relief of the front plate of such tiles was created using wooden forms made by a wood carver. Red Moscow clay (hence the color and name) was molded, dried and fired. Multi-colored, mottled tiles began to be widely used since the 30s of the 17th century. Their front side was covered with glaze (most often green), which was fixed by firing. They were also made using wooden molds. The second half of the 17th century is considered to be the heyday of Russian tile art; this is also due to the advent of new technologies for producing relief multi-color tiles, as well as the development of artistic painting techniques.
The most common motif in the ornamentation of tiles of that time was floral patterns, in the old way - “grasses”. Naturally, in an agricultural country, which was Tsarist Russia, plant patterns played an important role in decorative art.
The very language of the inventories of the 16th and 17th centuries, precise and figurative, replete with terminology taken from nature, indicates the special closeness of plant forms to Russian people. The shapes of objects in the language of these ancient inventories are often defined by the words “apple”, “tulip”, “pear”, “pumpkin”, “melon”, and these “apples” of objects of decorative art sometimes deviate quite far from natural ones. Grapes were also popular, and their appearance often did not differ from grainy berries like raspberries. However, the tiles of the Vorontsov Castle do not have a floral, but rather an orthogonal pattern.
And they represent a composition of geometric shapes. Whose job is this? The creation of foreign ceramists or the influence of European fashion with its meanders and alagreks on Russian masters, unfortunately, is unknown. But flowers, herbs and fabulous birds are depicted on the slabs of the fountain in the State Dining Room. The fountain, more reminiscent of a fireplace, is located in the center of the northern wall, under the balcony where the musicians were located. This Italian majolica tile has a molded spout in the shape of the head of a mythical creature. In general, the attitude of the architects of the past towards finishing ceramics, its role in the decoration of ancient palaces and temples makes us wonder how much we, the descendants of these glorious people, know about this type of decorative and applied art? Do we value the traditions of this craft enough? Can we make the right choice of material for our homes, so that our descendants will ask similar questions? We are grateful to Crimea and Yalta, as well as to the people, thanks to whom this trip will remain in our memory, and we hope that we will meet this wonderful place again.
The article was based on the following materials:
the official website of the Alupka Palace and Park Museum-Reserve worontsovpalace.org;
Filippov A.V. Old Russian tiles. M., 1938