In this slideshow, you'll analyze the symbols you see on objects in the exhibition "Peasant Women of the Russian North: Heritage of a Culture Lost." Next, you can visit the activity "Design a Personal Symbol" to create a symbol of your own! 

Guiding questions to keep in mind: 1) What can objects teach us about the past? 2) What do the everyday objects we use reveal about our lives? 3) How is the production of cloth shaped by the culture and geography of the region? 

Many of the items on display in the exhibition "Peasant Women of the Russian North" are decorated with designs, patterns, and symbols, like the embroidered towel seen here. What's a symbol? 

A symbol is something that represents or stands in for something else. Can you think of any symbols from your everyday life? What do they look like, and what do they represent? 

What shapes and figures do you see in the embroidery here? Describe it. 

Visitors sometimes say the figure standing in the middle of this embroidery looks like an alien or a robot-- but really, it is a woman, with birds on either side of her. She represents a pagan goddess, the Mother Goddess, associated with life and creation. This is an ancient symbol, from long before Christianity arrived in Russia, and there are many different variations on the symbol. 

Move to the next slide to look at more embroidered symbols. 

While the techniques and patterns of embroidery were passed down over centuries, there's no ancient handbook explaining what all of the symbols mean. Scholars and researchers have done their best to decode their meanings, but some of the symbols have probably lost their original significance. Sometimes scholars are just making an educated guess! 

What do you see in this design? What shapes, colors and patterns can you find? 

The large figure in the center is a bird, possibly a rooster or a peacock. What might a rooster symbolize? 

Since roosters crow at dawn to mark the beginning of a new day, a rooster might symbolize a new beginning. Embroidered towels with rooster symbols were often given as wedding gifts-- perfect for a couple's new beginning! 

Birds can also be symbols of the sun, and peacocks have long tail feathers like the sun's rays. 

We call these woven cloths "towels," but they're not towels like you might use after a shower or at the beach. These are ritual towels, or cloths that would be used for special purposes, like during a wedding or holiday celebration. 

What images do you see on the linen towels behind the flax? 

These designs are newer and less traditional than some of the others within the exhibition. Cats, for example, would not typically appear on 19th century Russian ritual towels! However, you might still see some elements you recognize. Can you spot the birds? 

What shapes and patterns do you notice on this towel? 

Visitors often say they see a snowflake design here, but that symbol is more likely a sun. The sun makes life on earth possible, so the sun is incredibly important and can appear in a number of different kinds of symbols. Sometimes the sun is represented as a circle, a diamond, a cross, or even a rectangular shape. Often there are rays or radiating lines around it, which can sometimes resemble a snowflake. It can also appear as more of a spiral, indicating the sun's continuous "path" throughout the day. 

What do you see on this towel from the Vologda region? What does this shape look like to you? 

This design falls into the category of "tree of life" symbols. Just as there were many different ways to represent the sun, there were many different ways to represent trees. 

Images of trees are prominently featured on northern decorative towels. In densely wooded northern Russia, trees were a life-giving source providing peasants with material for furniture, tools, transportation, and most importantly, firewood. Ancient records mention that the pagan inhabitants of Russia decorated trees with towels and venerated them.  

The "tree of life" symbol here could be a combination of a tree figure with a goddess figure: we see a smaller figure inside of a larger one, which could symbolize life-giving power. 

While the exhibition includes many symbols embroidered on linen textiles, we also see symbols and patterns painted on some of the spinning tools. 

Look at the designs on these two prialkas from the Rakulka River region. What do you see? 

Do you see flowers? How about birds? What might these represent or symbolize? 

While the prialkas from the Rakulka River region are painted, the prialkas from the Vologda region are carved. 

What shapes do you see on this prialka? What do you think these shapes could represent? 

These geometric shapes include radiating circles, or circles with lines emanating from the center. Do you remember what these represent? 

While the symbols we've looked at date back to ancient times, and most of the objects we're examining are hundreds of years old, we also have an example of a contemporary artist interpreting these symbols. 

Andréa Stanislav, an artist based in Bloomington, IN and New York, NY, researched the textiles and prialkas in our museum collection and developed a multimedia installation inspired by these objects. The installation is called "Spinner's Song." Do you see how some of these symbols have come to life in "Spinner's Song?" 

On the next slide, you can watch a video that shows "Spinner's Song" in action in the gallery. 

Watch the video showing a gallery view of Andréa Stanislav's installation "Spinner's Song." What symbols do you recognize? 

The artist worked with a composer and musician, Jesse Gelaznik, to create a soundscape for the installation. What do you notice about the music? Do you like it? Why or why not? 

Standards for Learning: Exploring Symbols

National Core Arts Standards