Painting a pysanka is like writing one’s life

Shortly before Easter, the Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art Museum in Kyiv conducted master classes on painting Ukrainian Easter eggs, known as pysanky. The Day’s reporters attended one of them. It was a weekday, but the hall was packed with adults and especially children. The students had to wait until the first group finished.

“This is the first time that I am painting a pysanka,” says Yaroslava Lukavenko, a grade six pupil at Kyiv’s School No.75. “But now I know how Easter eggs are made: you hard-boil them with onion skin and they turn bright red. There is a legend about a woman, who took a basketful of eggs to the bazaar. On the way she met Jesus carrying His heavy cross. She gave him some water and wiped the blood off His face. Then she looked at the eggs in the basket. They had all turned scarlet. I’ve also read about the driapanky Easter eggs; that’s when you scratch a pattern on a pysanka — well, I don’t think I’ll be able to master all these techniques at once.”

Tetiana Tarhonia, a student at Kyiv National Technology and Design University said: “As a future art historian, I want to learn from professionals how to paint pysankas. Last year I gave it a try; I did everything according to the textbook, but somehow the Easter eggs didn’t turn out right.”

The master class was conducted in one of the largest exhibition halls filled with precious items on display (ceramic pieces, glassware, carpets, and folk costumes) dating from the 16th to the early 20th century. There were several tables and benches placed on both sides of the hall; somehow they reminded me of a village wedding party, except that a different enigmatic ritual was being performed on the tables: pysankas were being created. The children at the tables moved closer together so that the eager adults could sit on the benches. Then everyone listened quietly to the pysanka painter, Tetiana Lavrynchuk. The listeners stole glances at other people’s pysankas to see their progress. They must have felt like real artists with their hands covered in paint.

“Why did we decide to hold this master class?” the museum’s deputy curator Halyna Bezkorovaina begins explaining. “I think that a classical museum like ours needs a ‘live’ page, in this case I mean pysanka-painting classes. Look at the children: they are all concentrating on their tasks; they are really interested. Because of these events rare items dating to the 15th or 19th century no longer appear as something remote or frozen. They are increasingly aware that such objects are evidence of how their forefathers lived.” It is worth mentioning that the museum has hosted vechornytsi organized by Oleh Skrypka.

A pysanka starts being decorated after the egg’s contents are blown out. Two holes are made on the top and the bottom and then plugged with wax so that the dye does not penetrate the inside when the egg is immersed. Bezkorovaina says that full eggs are also decorated sometimes. After all, an egg is a symbol of life, so you are not supposed to empty it. But such Easter eggs cannot be stored for long. In the past, the eggs were baked in the oven, and the egg white and yolk would dry out and turn into a little ball, and the pysankas came out like oval ornamented rattles.

“After plugging the holes we treat the eggshell with vinegar,” Bezkorovaina continues, wiping the shell with a moistened rag. “You need a white chicken egg, not a brown one; otherwise you won’t have the traditional white background for your patter. You pencil the pattern first. Then you use a special “brush” — a metal tube with a wooden scoop in which you place melted wax) — to mark the places that will be left white, and then immerse the egg in yellow dye. After that you cover the yellow patterns with wax. Then you immerse the egg in the green dye, then sky-blue, dark blue, brown, and black dyes, according to the color intensity of the whole pattern. Actually, a pysanka can have just two or three colors, or multiple colors.” The deputy curator handed me an Easter egg and told me that, after buying pysankas at an art gallery or from a city vendor, people can make them at home.

“Maybe I should give it a try,” I said and placed a pysanka over the open flame; the wax started melting and rolling down. I wiped it off with a soft tissue and waited until the Easter egg started gleaming with bright colors. VoilИ! The other students of the master class were still working on their eggs. Although everyone had to cope with the same simple vegetal pattern, each egg turned out to be an unexpectedly original palette of colors. Every student must have thought of a special one as an Easter gift for parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and sweethearts. Since time immemorial pysankas have been made in Ukraine as gifts, whereas krashankas (painted chicken eggs) are meant to be eaten.

“Pysankas were made as gifts for family and friends, even for enemies, to make them less hostile,” notes Bezkorovaina, adding, “The ornaments were planned beforehand. They reflected wishes for a certain individual, because there was a belief that painting a pysanka was like writing your life.”