Uzbek art and craft

Uzbek national arts and crafts have long enjoyed a well-deserved fame. The historical conditions, in which the culture of the Uzbek people developed, predetermined applied art a special role. For many centuries the people created its technical and artistic traditions. Applied art is genre, the main feature of which is a deep connection of artistic creativity and material needs. The organic fusion of the artistic and practically necessary creates an indissoluble unity of ideologically- artistic and socially-practical functions. The work of applied art is distinguished by expediency and unity of forms and design. The social nature of decorative art is its collectivity; art is the heritage of many ages. It performs a series of successive layers, the most ancient of which reflect the original culture of the people deeply imprinted in its art. The works of all the genres of this art are designated by the variety of artistic traditions brought by the peoples who made up the Uzbek nation.

Types of arts and crafts in Uzbekistan

Kinds of national arts and crafts of Uzbekistan are the original and exclusive creativity of folk artists and artisans who pass their skills from seniors to juniors. By investing a piece of the soul in each thing, they for centuries have created unique examples of products: whether it is a house utensil or a home decoration, a unique fabric for a festive dress or special utensils.

The creations of Fergana, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and other masters have long been famous far beyond their homeland. Their works continue to arouse interest among lovers of beauty from all over the world. Various schools of embroidered suzane and ceramics, Uzbek pictures on leather, skullcaps of various kinds and purposes, Uzbek national knives-pichoks, silk and wool carpets, souvenirs of papier-mache, wooden items, Uzbek jewelry, wonderful works from iron, which for many centuries are being created by the hands of local craftsmen and masters make up the unique exotic of Uzbekistan.

On the territory of Uzbekistan, the original centers and schools of folk art crafts were formed. Each terrain has its own direction. Namangan Chust is widely known for its skullcaps and knives; Rishtan is famous for cerulean ceramics; ancient Margilan attracts tourists with iridescent khan-atlas and sacred Bukhara is well-known for gold embroidery.

In the villages of Uba (Bukhara region), Nurata (Navoi region), as well as in Denau (Surkhandarya region), skilled craftsmen make clay toys. Fantastic animals, birds, horses, sheep, constitute the main stock of images of clay toys. The most popular toys are whistles. And how not to say about Uzbek national dolls! Masters literally create real images, investing in each of them the soul, strength and warmth.

Past and present of Uzbekistan art and craft

Decorative and applied arts of Uzbekistan developed from century to century, leaving in the inheritance unique products of famous and nameless masters, striking with richness of artistic imagination andu00a0consummation of forms.

Unique examples of folk architecture, fine and decorative arts of the Uzbeks go back to the era of primitive.

Closely connected with material and spiritual culture, examples of the ancestors of the Uzbeks and other Central Asian peoples, ranging from primitive painting and sculpture to art monuments of the antiquity and the Middle Ages, testify to their high endowments and rich spirituality. Having common ethnogenetic roots, these peoples for centuries have been creating in the region a variety of tools, weapons of war, richly decorated clothes and jewelry, homes and household utensils that meet their aesthetic needs. The study of ethnocultural traditions of the Central Asian ethnoses showed that they have not only a common historical destiny and common ethnographic origins. The basis for creating samples of the national culture and art of each people, including Uzbeks, was shared ground. This is evidenced by the rich monuments of the ancient era, created by ancient Khorezmians, Bactrians, Sogdians, Margilans, and subsequently Turkic-speaking ethnic groups.

The Uzbek folk fine and applied arts in all its forms have long attracted the attention of boffins to the profound democracy of the ideas embedded in it, reflecting the way of life, culture and worldview of the people themselves. For many centuries, the people have created unique monuments in all genres of folklore, fine and decorative art, putting in them their understanding of beauty, their desire for beauty. Developing and improving, Uzbek folk art has brought to the present day its best traditions, which could not but have a huge influence on the development of professional art. But nowadays, we are witnessing the renewal of all kinds of folk art, which today perceive ethno-cultural traditions much more widely and many times than before. At the same time, the arts and crafts of the Uzbeks, like the art of any other people, absorbed the characteristics of the culture of different epochs and various ethnic groups that have merged into the ethnogenesis of the Uzbek people, accumulating not only certain elements of other cultures, but also those or other significant events.

Being an integral part of folk creation, decorative and applied art of Uzbekistan, which has found its vivid expression in architecture, household utensils, clothes and ornaments, helps to reveal not only the general and particular features of life and culture, but also to determine their ethnogenetic origins.

Although the types of folk art that have survived to us have retained their techniques and style, they have undergone some changes in form and content. Instead of colorful images of people, animals and other creatures, scenes of separate events with the establishment of the rule of Islam, various geometric and floral ornaments appear. On ordinary household objects and ornaments, magnificent architectural structures in accordance with Muslim dogmatics, images of living beings almost completely disappear.

Thus, in the richest ethno-cultural heritage of the Uzbek people, a special place is occupied by a multifaceted and highly decorative arts and crafts. It finds a vivid expression of artistic thought and closely interwoven with it artistic creativity, the originality of the national mentality of the Uzbeks.

Rapid development and constant improvement of the Uzbek national fine and applied art have found their embodiment in the world famous architectural monuments, in exquisite details of ganch, colorful tiles, rich ornamentation, carpet weaving, colorful embroideries, etc. Due to the natural talent and heroic labor of our ancestors, unique architectural monuments and fine examples of arts and crafts are a significant contribution of the Uzbek people to the world culture. Currently, traditional art is enriched with new species, forms, directions and, what is especially remarkable, with even new content.

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