Pysanky from Kolomiya

Pysanky From Kolomiya

Orysia Tracz was very kind to send me her photographs of some pysanky from Kolomiya. Most of the pysanky were purchased, and the others were received as gifts, during her 1997 to 1999 Folk Art And Culture Tours to Ukraine. The pysanky that were purchased are from the small gift shop of the Kolomiys'kiy Muzey Narodnoho Mystetstva Hutsul'shchyny (Kolomyia Museum of Hutsul Folk Art). The small pysanky are pysani (written) on kuryachi (chicken) eggs and the large ones are pysani (written) on husyachi (goose) eggs. The fabric in the background is a small, contemporary, weaving from Ukraine, probably from the Karpaty.

Duzhe dyakuyu tobi, Orysiu, for letting me share these!

Nota bene: This page loads slowly because the image files are large. These images were scanned in, on an HP Scanjet 4c, at 2x the size of the photos, balanced and adjusted for brightness and contrast before being saved as TIFFs, converted to JPEGs, with 10 percent compression, via Corel Photo Paint, and some were then resized, in the HTML, to look presentable here... On some of the images, you can do a 'view image' to see a bigger image with much more detail.

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A pysanka in the hand is worth one in the group... The pysanka in the left image is also in the group on the right. Did you figure out which one it is?

In the right image, the pysanka in the lower left is an interesting variant on the vzir (design) called "sorok klyntsiv" (forty triangles)! Both the pysanka in the center, and the one to the right of it, have very interesting designs. The pysanka in the upper left, and the the one in the center right, is written on a goose egg; the others are chicken eggs.

Horses and meanders are the main design elements of the pysanka on the right. In that pysanka, the horses look like they are running through fields of tall, billowing grass...

Two variants on a theme... both pysanky have been divided very similarly, but the vzory (designs) are very different, making each one unique!

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Two views of the same pysanky, showing the oleni (elk) and other details in the vzory (designs) on the sides, the poyas (belt) and the kinchyk (end).

The pysanka on the left looks like a variant of the vzir (design) called "sorok klyntsiv" (forty triangles). Here, some of the triangles have been subdivided again. Among the design elements are sontse (sun) and oleni (elk) motifs.

A most unusual method has been used to make this pysanka. The vzir (design) has been cut into the goose egg shell. It may have been etched, or cut into the shell with a small, high speed drill. It is from Yuriy Tsikalo of Ternopil. It may have been made by him, or by someone in his circle of pysanka writers. His sister is Lesia Pryveda, now in Lviv, who does remarkable "Tania Osadca"-style pysanky. She is featured in one of the travel videos on Ukraine.

Horses are the main theme of the vzory (designs) on these two pysanky.

The pysanka on the left is written on a goose egg.

The pysanka in the upper left is another variant of the "sorok klyntsiv" (forty triangles), with red and orange oleni (elk) occupying the triangles.

The pysanka on the right shows a tree with birds in it - the "derevo zhyttya" ("tree of life") from the ancient mythos. At the bottom of the tree is the word "Kolomiya". I am not sure whether they can be spotted, but this pysanka has a modern touch to it - among the branches are little silver dots, which may have been put on using a metallic paint marker?

The pysanka on the left has "Khrystos Voskres" written on it. This pysanka was written by Yuriy Tsikalo of Ternopil. That red material is a tassle, which has been threaded through the egg shell.

The pysanka on the right is written on a goose egg.

The vzory (designs) of the pysanka on the left remind me of a kylym (woven rug). Again, horses are strong thematics in both of these pysanky.

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Two views of the same pysanka. In the left image, you can see the khrest (cross) which is the vzir (design) on that side of the pysanka.

In the right image, you can see the poyas (broad belt), and near the bottom of the image, the tserkva (church) that is the vzir (design) on the other side of this pysanka.

The pysanka on the left features horses, along with the eight-pointed symbol for the sontse (sun).

On the right is another variant of the "sorok klyntsiv". Here, barany (goats) occupy the triangles, which are bordered by meanders.

pysumc.jpg - pysanky on the ukr. museum card

Yes, this is the card with pysanky from the Ukrainan Museum in New York City - I included it because it is nice!

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