On February 16, 2023, a new exhibition “The Path of Faith and Virtue: Artistic Traditions of Muslim Peoples of Russia” opens at the Russian Museum of Ethnography.
The exhibits came to the museum fund as a result of trips by REM employees on ethnographic expeditions to the Caucasus, the Volga region, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. These items were selected as samples of traditional culture and life, characterizing the daily life of people living in these territories, and are currently recognized historical and ethnographic sources.
Jewelry with an amulet
Photo source: Press Service of the Ethnographic Museum
At the same time, all the things presented at the exhibition are also monuments of applied folk art, reflecting a certain standard of artistic creativity adopted in the countries of the Muslim East, which consists in the fact that the creation of aesthetically beautiful objects of the material environment is the same service to the highest ideal, as well as sincere prayer.
“By presenting samples of folk art from the Muslim peoples of the Volga region, the Caucasus and Central Asia, we strive to show how the ideas of Islam acquired tangibility in the objects of life daily life and filled the habitat with beauty”, comments Vladimir Dmitriev.
Inkwell
Photo source: Press Service of the Ethnographic Museum
To solve this problem, the organizers of the exhibition turned to themes such as religious norms (testimony of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage) and accepted rules of conduct for believers, the observance of which was a virtue in the eyes of others (respect for the prescribed and negation of the forbidden, fight against evil, creative work, sacrifice in actions, search for beauty, faith in celestial bliss). Each of the subjects is covered by the attraction of real monuments of daily culture with artistic value. The exhibition features 150 pieces from the 19th and 20th centuries from the collections of the Russian Ethnographic Museum.
The exhibition can be visited until October 16, 2023. 12+
