Ornamented artifacts sometimes contain the history and culture of their place of origin.
Objects like rushnyky exemplify this best. The embroidered pieces of cloth with ornamental designs are central to Ukrainian culture and are used to commemorate all major ceremonial events, according to independent scholar Suzanne Holyck Hunchuck.
Hunchuck spoke at a Carleton event hosted by the School for Studies in Art and Culture March 22 to discuss rushnyky and show their influence on modern architecture.
In an event titled “Rushnyky in the Built Environment: A New Interpretation of an Old Art Form,” Hunchuck walked attendees through the history of the rushnyky, highlighting their omnipresence in Ukrainian culture.
Rushnyky are usually ornamented with red and black embroidery, made by using hand cotton.
“Ukrainian rushnyky vary on their size and designs depending on their function, region and historical era,” Hunchuck said, adding that “there are hundreds of pictorial motifs.”
The most basic function rushnyky have is as a towel to wipe a person’s hands. In fact, some people even translate the word rushnyk to simply “towel,” a translation that does not please Hunchuck.
“It is wrong,” she said, adding that the term “linen cryptogram” is more correct.
Rushnyky are present in most points of social rituals in life and death and in all points of transition in different spaces.
“Simply put, a rushnyk can accompany an Ukrainian from cradle to grave,” Hunchuck said.
The most familiar places to see rushnyky are Ukrainian churches near the homes of people with Ukrainian ancestry. In this context, “rushnyk delineate what is sacred and what is not,” she said.
Also in religious places, rushnyky are used to wrap bread, as decoration in Easter baskets, and in weddings.
“Here [pointing to a painting] we see a peasant wedding, and we can see something sacred is going on because people are in an illuminated zone surrounded by rushnyky,” Hunchuck said.
The ornamented pieces of cloth are also present in all stages of matchmaking, courtship, and approval.
“When a matchmaker makes an arrangement between a potential suitor and a potential bride, he’s paid with a rushnyk,” she said.
Apart from all the daily functions, rushnyky also have the function to frame the important from everything else and to convey “Urkainian-ness.”
Hunchuck concluded her presentation by showing the impact ornamented textiles have on architecture.
“The use of ornamental textiles in architecture is fundamental, it is primordial,” she said.
Hunchuck said creating a textile is taking the raw matter of nature in its “chaotic state” and transforming it into an ordered world.
While they are used in many buildings, rushnyky are used to welcome people and denote importance. Hunchuck’s presentation centered against the belief that ornaments are superficial, while she believes they have potent symbolic meaning.
Hunchuck said that the ornaments go against the architectural modernist saying that “less is more,” because rushnyky are examples of the postmodernist belief that “less is a bore.”
