Russian Khokhloma

The fame of this glorious artist spread everywhere. People where come from all over to admire his art. Many of those people were making peasants huts for themselves and settling in the neighbourhood.

At the end the Tzar himself heard about the famous artist. He ordered his people to find the man who escaped his mansion and bring him back. However the peoples talk reach the artist before the Tzars’s servants. Once the artist found out about what was laying ahead for him he gathered all the people from his village and told them all the secrets of this craft.

In the morning when the Tzar’s messengers arrived everybody saw how bright the artist’s hut was burning. The hut was burnt and nobody could ever find the artist again. He was gone, but his colours remain everywhere, as if they sponged in the very heat of the flame and the blackness of the ashes.

The craftsman vanished, but his craftsmanship goes on living and up to now the khokhloma colours burn in a bright flame reminding us all about the happiness of freedom and of the heat of love for people and of thirst for beauty. The brush of the master must have been a magic one, made of the suns rays.

This is how the legend goes, and as any legend it cannot be without fiction; however its truth is that a really big craftsmanship and big art can be only preserved when they are handed in from teacher to a pupil.