Displaying

Pysanky

 

Traditionally, pysanky were talismanic objects, not objects of art.  They were usually kept in a bowl in the pokuttia, the corner of the house where the icons were kept. Some were placed in the barn, in the fields, in the beehives to ensure fertility. 

But there were other traditional ways of storing/displaying pysanky, two of which are pictured above.  The best known is hanging them as birds.  Shukhevych wrote about this in “Hutsulshchyna”: people would attach paper wings and a paper tail to a pysanka, and a wax head.  This bird would then be hung in the pokuttia near the icons.


Another “traditional” method, albeit a more recent one, is making a “namysto (string of beads)” out of blown out pysanky.  They are strung on a sting, and then hung in the house.  I have seen a few references to this being a Hutsul custom, and have seen examples in museum displays іn Ukraine (photo below from the Museum of the Pysanka).  Since pysanky were not emptied in earlier times, one must assume this is not a tradition which goes back very far.



Pysanky in a pavuk (straw mobile), as in the photo at the top, are also fairly recent, and for the same reason--emptied pysanky.



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Traditional methods