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The art of making tiles and other articles
of baked clay had been know to Russians from the pre-Christian era, but in
their country where the supply of lumber was virtually unlimited it played a
minor role until the 17th century. The first tiles, found in several parts of
Russia, were the so-called red tiles "Krasnie izrazts." They were
unglazed and were named for their natural brown-radish, baked clay color. Their
relief ornamentation was made by molding the clay in special wooden frames.
Such tiles were first used to decorate churches built in the middle of the 17th
century. They often reflect the moods of the time, and show patriotic or
military scenes in connection with the fight against foreign invaders. Only a
few decades later the red tiles were seldom used; they gave place to green
glazed tiles "Zelenie glazurovanie izraztsi." They were made the same
way as the red ones; the front side was then covered, with a thin layer of
kaolin and copper oxide, which gave the tiles a green translucent glazing
The art of glazing the tiles and covering them with varicolored enamels very
quickly reached its finest period during the construction of Nikon's
Resurrection Monastery. The new forms of the tiles permitted the builders to
cover the most complicated and elaborate facades, architectural details or
ornamental objects with them. Their favorite colors were white, green, yellow
and blue and, of course, the natural brown-red. Sometimes a single design was
spread over several tiles. When production of tiles at Nikon's Monastery
stopped in 1666, Tsar Aleksei issued an ukhaz transferring all masters of
architectural ceramics "Mastera tseninnoy khitrosti" to the Kremlin's
Armory Chamber. In only a few years everybody who could afford it used
varicolored tiles to decorate new buildings. From Moscow the new fashion spread
throughout the major cities, primarily to Rostov the Great, Uglich, Vladimir
and Yaroslavl. When Peter the Great visited Holland, he grew very fond of Dutch
flat tiles, called delftware, which are made of faience with painted blue
designs on a white background. Since nobody in Russia knew how to make them at
the time, he found two prisoners of the war from Sweden who were familiar with
that craft. They were sent to New Jerusalem to reopen the workshops and train
Russian apprentices in the new job. Of course the first tiles went to the
Kremlin and Saint Petersburg, but soon faience tile factories were opened in
several cities, and the homes of boyars, princes and well-to-do people were
flooded with big stoves made of tiles that were decorated with "Blue
herbage," as the Russians sometimes sarcastically called the foliage
designs that they got from Holland.
One of the first batches of varicolored tiles from the Armory Chamber's faience
factory, made by the masters brought to Moscow in 1666, was used to decorate
the Kremlin's Terem Palace. This was part of an extensive redecoration of the
entire complex, done in 1679-1681 under Osip Startsev, a well-known Moscow
architect. Two large friezes were entirely covered with polychrome foliage. The
ornaments of the Terem Palace have been considered the best examples of the
essential characteristics of Russian decorative architectural ar. As such they
have often been imitated throughout the country.
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