DOI Heft:
No. 267 (June 1915)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21213#0075
Studio-Talk
PAINTED WOODEN TOYS
DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY VLADIMIR POLUNIN FOR THE BOARD OF TRADE
new field, trying to evolve something entitrely new
and original. The new methods of toy-making
which have brought this craft back to its original
sources and have proved extremely successful in the
artistic sense, have been worked out and tested in
Russia, and provide a singularly instructive example
of how this important industry can be conducted
on national lines if only sufficient interest be shown
by those in a position to give it a whole-hearted
support. _
“ In Russia as in England and other countries
the market has long been flooded with German-
made toys. It was only at the end of the eighteenth
century that toy-making was started as a trade in
the precincts of the Troytsko-Serghievskaya Lavra,
the old Russian monastery famous for its shrines
and its role in Russian history. Developing
gradually and slowly, it spread from the Serghievsky
village to the neighbouring villages and districts of
the Moscow province, though the centre of the
industry has always remained in the former, where
at present it gives occupation to about 6000
families. It is estimated that about ,£90,000
worth of toys are annually produced in the Moscow
province, and there are numerous signs pointing to
a continuous growth and progress of the trade.
Much of the recent success in this direction has
been due to the intelligent and sympathetic policy
adopted by the Moscow Provincial Government
(Zemstvo) which some five-and-twenty years ago
established a school work-shop for making toys.
The object of the school was to spread better
knowledge of the technique of the trade, to assist
the peasant artisan in selling his work and to supply
him with good materials at a moderate price. The
important fact to be noticed here is that only by
helping the toy-maker to realise his product in the
market was it possible to bring him to the use of
more artistic models, improved methods, and better
materials. It also points to the co-operative organi-
sations as best suited for achieving this end, and
thus clearly indicates the path along which the
efforts now being made in England should be
directed.
“The initiative shown by the Board of Trade in
commissioning a gifted Russian artist, M. Vladimir
Polunin, to design and produce a series of toys,
is to be highly commended as a judicious step
inaugurating, it is to be hoped, a new era in the
British manufacture of toys. M. Polunin has been
living in this country during the last five years and
has shown himself as an original and extremely
55
PAINTED WOODEN TOYS
DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY VLADIMIR POLUNIN FOR THE BOARD OF TRADE
new field, trying to evolve something entitrely new
and original. The new methods of toy-making
which have brought this craft back to its original
sources and have proved extremely successful in the
artistic sense, have been worked out and tested in
Russia, and provide a singularly instructive example
of how this important industry can be conducted
on national lines if only sufficient interest be shown
by those in a position to give it a whole-hearted
support. _
“ In Russia as in England and other countries
the market has long been flooded with German-
made toys. It was only at the end of the eighteenth
century that toy-making was started as a trade in
the precincts of the Troytsko-Serghievskaya Lavra,
the old Russian monastery famous for its shrines
and its role in Russian history. Developing
gradually and slowly, it spread from the Serghievsky
village to the neighbouring villages and districts of
the Moscow province, though the centre of the
industry has always remained in the former, where
at present it gives occupation to about 6000
families. It is estimated that about ,£90,000
worth of toys are annually produced in the Moscow
province, and there are numerous signs pointing to
a continuous growth and progress of the trade.
Much of the recent success in this direction has
been due to the intelligent and sympathetic policy
adopted by the Moscow Provincial Government
(Zemstvo) which some five-and-twenty years ago
established a school work-shop for making toys.
The object of the school was to spread better
knowledge of the technique of the trade, to assist
the peasant artisan in selling his work and to supply
him with good materials at a moderate price. The
important fact to be noticed here is that only by
helping the toy-maker to realise his product in the
market was it possible to bring him to the use of
more artistic models, improved methods, and better
materials. It also points to the co-operative organi-
sations as best suited for achieving this end, and
thus clearly indicates the path along which the
efforts now being made in England should be
directed.
“The initiative shown by the Board of Trade in
commissioning a gifted Russian artist, M. Vladimir
Polunin, to design and produce a series of toys,
is to be highly commended as a judicious step
inaugurating, it is to be hoped, a new era in the
British manufacture of toys. M. Polunin has been
living in this country during the last five years and
has shown himself as an original and extremely
55