Lubok

A lubok (plural Lubki, Cyrillic: Russian: лубо́к, лубо́чная картинка) is a Russian popular print, characterized by simple graphics and narratives derived from literature, religious stories and popular tales. Lubki prints were used as decoration in houses and inns. Early examples from the late 17th and early 18th centuries were woodcuts, then engravings or etchings were typical, and from the mid-19th century lithography. They sometimes appeared in series, which might be regarded as predecessors of the modern comic strip. Cheap and simple books, similar to chapbooks, which mostly consisted of pictures, are called lubok literature or (Cyrillic: Russian: лубочная литература). Both pictures and literature are commonly referred to simply as lubki. The Russian word lubok derives from lub - a special type of board that pictures were printed on.

Russian lubki became a popular genre of during the last half of the seventeenth century. Russian lubok was primarily influenced by the "woodcuts and engravings done in Germany, Italy, and France during the early part of the fifteenth century". Its popularity in Russia was a result of how inexpensive and fairly simple it was to duplicate a print using this new technique. Luboks were typically sold at various marketplaces to the lower and middle classes. This type of art was very popular with these two social classes because the lubok provided them with an inexpensive opportunity to display artwork in their houses.

The original lubki were woodcuts. The Koren Picture-Bible, 1692-1696 established the most prominent style, an "Old Russian" rendering of international iconography and subjects, most closely related to the frescos of the Upper Volga. By mid-18th century, however, the woodcuts were mostly replaced with engraving or etching techniques, which enabled the prints to be more detailed and complex. After printing on paper, the picture would be hand-colored with diluted tempera paints. While the prints themselves were typically very simplistic and unadorned, the final product, with the tempera paint added, was surprisingly bright with vivid colors and lines. The dramatic coloring of the early woodcut prints was to some extent lost with the transfer to more detailed engravings.

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