Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1364923
5 Ukrainian Folk Art and Ukrainian Primitivism go hand-in-hand. The first was essentially a naïve style popular in peasant culture in the 19th century that was born out of earlier religious iconography and used mainly to decorate domestic and household objects, especially embroidery and furniture. Interest in Folk Art came about as Ukraine, coinciding with artistic experimentation elsewhere in Europe at the beginning the 20th century, began to investigate its past, its roots, cultural history and local artists looked within the borders of their own country for inspiration. Described as a, 'National-Cultural Revival', the movement was at its most energetic in the 1910's-20's as Ukraine sought an identity freer from Russian influence. Theirs was not a search for a 'new world' order, more the search for, and discovery of, a national identity, culminating in the Declaration of Ukrainian Independence on January 22nd 1918. This movement was led by Maria Sinyakova (1892-1985). From a fabulously-eccen- tric family from Kharkov in Eastern Ukraine, Sinyakova was one of five sisters and four brothers whose out-of-town residence, Krasnaya Polyana was, according to Lily Brik, Vladimir Mayakovsky's lover, 'where Futurism was born' and where, in 1918, Sinyakova's foremost disciple, Boris Kosarev (1897-1994) went for the first time. Left without parents early in their lives the Sinyakova girls, according to Brik, 'roamed the woods with their hair loose. Their independence and eccentricity startled everyone. Khlebnikov was in love with all of them, Pasternak was in love with Nadia, Burliuk with Maria. Aseev* married Oksana'. Another of these 'Muses to Futurism', Vera, married the poet Petnikov and, after divorce, another writer, Gekht. Lily Brik remembered how Maria, "impressed me with her beauty, her colourful eyes almost white set against her dark skin." It was Krasnaya Polyana that provided the background for the national revival. Every summer the family de-camped from Kharkov, as Maria remembered, "to the green fields, forests, river in light fog, the blue sky – here was my pictorial Academy." *Aseev rather incongruously, translated Chairman Mao's verses later in life