# Lubok Popular Print

> Cheap single-sheet Russian popular prints sold at fairs and by pedlars from the later 17th century: woodcut, later engraved and lithographed pictures of saints, fables, heroes, battles and satire in which text and image share one sheet. Thick-contoured, flattened figures fill the field, captions and rhymed verses crowd the gaps, episodes split into panels, and loud tempera washes brushed on by hand spill over the lines.

- Period: 1650–1920
- Where: Eastern Europe
- Origin: Moscow and the Russian provinces; woodcut workshops from the later 17th century, industrialised by Ivan Sytin's Moscow presses in the late 19th century
- Branch: Traditions & vernacular
- Also known as: Lubki, Russian popular print, Russian folk picture, Agitlubok (wartime descendant)
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/lubok/

## How it works

- Cut picture and text in the same block, squeezing captions, dialogue and verses into the gaps around the figures.
- Flatten figures with thick black contours and mix perspectives freely; clarity of story beats illusion.
- Brush a few loud washes (red, yellow, green, crimson) on by hand after printing and let them spill over the contours.
- Split the sheet into numbered episodes or rows when a story needs time, reading like an early comic strip.
- Use carnivalesque humour and inversion, such as mice burying a cat, to entertain, moralise or mock authority.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (characteristic)
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (defining)
- [Sequential narrative](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/sequential-narrative/) (characteristic)
- [Layered information](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/layered-information/) (characteristic)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (defining)
- [Tight setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/tight-setting/) (characteristic)
- [Rotated & vertical setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rotated-and-vertical-setting/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (characteristic)
- [Complementary clash](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/complementary-clash/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (defining)
- [Distortion & exaggeration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/distortion-and-exaggeration/) (characteristic)

### Surface & texture
- [Carved line](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/carved-line/) (defining)
- [Misregistration & overprint](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/misregistration-and-overprint/) (characteristic)
- [Painterly brushwork](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-brushwork/) (characteristic)
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (characteristic)
- [Floral & vegetal](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/floral-and-vegetal/) (occasional)
- [Folk & sacred symbols](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/folk-and-sacred-symbols/) (occasional)
- [Abundant decoration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/abundant-decoration/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (defining)
- [Comic & cartoon](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/comic-and-cartoon/) (characteristic)

### Medium & production
- [Woodblock & linocut](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/woodblock-and-linocut/) (defining)
- [Hand-painted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-painted/) (characteristic)
- [Lithography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/lithography/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (defining)
- [Playful & witty](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/playful-and-witty/) (characteristic)
- [Agitational & persuasive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/agitational-and-persuasive/) (characteristic)
- [Spiritual & sacred](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/spiritual-and-sacred/) (occasional)
- [Rebellious & subversive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rebellious-and-subversive/) (occasional)

Avoids: Generous white space, Non-representational, Straight photography, Gradients, Illusion of depth, Ornament-free, Grotesque & neo-grotesque

Palette: #efe3c8, #1a1612, #c62d2a, #e8b923, #3f7f3a, #a3245a

Typefaces: Hand-cut Cyrillic lettering in the block, from Church Slavonic-style semi-uncial (poluustav) to civil script, Rubber-stamped and stencilled lettering imitating lubok woodcut letters in Russian Futurist books

Known for: The Mice Are Burying the Cat (woodcut, 18th century); Vasily Koren, woodcut picture Bible (1692–1696); Ivan Sytin's Moscow publishing house, mass-produced lithographed lubki (late 19th–early 20th century); Mikhail Larionov's exhibition of icons and lubki, Moscow (1913); Segodnyashny Lubok (Today's Lubok) war posters, Kazimir Malevich with verses by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1914)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Led to: [ROSTA Windows](https://stylogeny.com/styles/rosta-windows.md) (1919–1922)
- Alike in its design choices: [Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print](https://stylogeny.com/styles/nianhua.md) (c. 1100–present), 76% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Persian Popular Narrative (Lithographs & Coffeehouse Painting)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/persian-popular-narrative.md) (1843–2012), 75% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Rorke's Drift Linocut](https://stylogeny.com/styles/rorkes-drift-print.md) (1962–1982), 71% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Mexican Popular Graphics (Posada)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/mexican-popular-graphics.md) (1880–1917), 70% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen](https://stylogeny.com/styles/imagerie-epinal.md) (1796–1939), 68% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Indonesian Woodcut Activism (Taring Padi)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/taring-padi-woodcut.md) (1998–present), 66% alike

## Real works

- [Coats of Skins (Kozhany rizy), sheet 14 of the Koren picture Bible](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KorenParadise.jpg): Vasily Koren, 1696, Wikimedia Commons (scan from O. D. Baldina, Russkie narodnye kartinki, 1972; holding institution not named)
- [The Mice Are Burying the Cat (Myshi kota pogrebayut)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mice-burying-the-cat.jpg): Anonymous Moscow woodcut workshop, design late 17th–early 18th century; image is a hand-coloured facsimile plate, apparently from D. A. Rovinsky's atlas (1881), Wikimedia Commons (via zeno.org; apparently plate 167 of D. A. Rovinsky, Russkie narodnye kartinki, atlas, 1881)
- [The Brave Bogatyr Bova Korolevich](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BovaLubok.jpg): Anonymous folk artist, early 1700s, Wikimedia Commons (scan from O. D. Baldina, Russkie narodnye kartinki, 1972; holding institution not named)
- [Farnos the Red Nose](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Farnos.jpg): Anonymous folk artist, 18th century (per Commons, unsourced), Wikimedia Commons (from a Rollins College course page; holding institution not recorded)
- [The Tale of Ersh Ershovich, Son of Shchetinnikov](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ersh_Ershovich.jpg): Anonymous (Rovinsky collection), 19th century or earlier (per Commons); image is a facsimile plate, apparently from D. A. Rovinsky's atlas (1881), Wikimedia Commons (from D. A. Rovinsky's Russian folk pictures; plate numbered 173)

## Sources

- University of Washington Libraries, 'The Russian Lubok and the Illustrated Children's Book': https://content.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/russian-childrens-lit/6-lubok.html
- Wikipedia: Lubok
- MoMA: Kazimir Malevich, patriotic propaganda postcards with verse by Vladimir Mayakovsky (publisher Segodniashnii lubok, Moscow, 1914): https://www.moma.org/collection/works/16995

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Lubok Popular Print”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/lubok/