Орнамент як предмет наукового дослідження
Ornament as the object of scientific research

Summary/Abstract: The history of the research of the ornament is the story of the discovery of its various functions. Ornament is the object of study of several scientific fields such as design, art history, Ethnography, archaeology and cultural studies. Ornament is an instrument to achieve a decorative, formative and aesthetic objectives. The ornament forms a case, marking the top and bottom, right and left side. Being deposited on the architectural planes or the surface of objects, ornament sets certain ways of their perception, directs eye movements, balances the whole with its parts. The object of art history analysis is stylistic and historical diversity of ornaments. Ornament is primarily perceived as an element of the form, object style in art history. Although art historians have noted that elements of ornament should have certain content, but art history rather captures the symbolism than try to decipher it. Primitive and traditional folk ornament is the object of the study of Ethnography that attempts, through an analysis of the symbolism of the ornaments to explore the culture of the people. Ethnographic studies that focus on identifying the distinctive historical and regional patterns of ornaments, indicate not only the existence of universal, common to all primitive and traditional folk cultural regions symbols and signs, but the same relationship to the ornamentation of objects. Many researchers emphasize that the ornament is the final stage of creation of the subject and participates in the process of "reviving" of the subject. Ethnography captures the conservatism and traditionalism of the ornament, its ability to protect the subject. Due to applied ornament the object becomes a part of material cultural world. Exploring ornaments, ethnographers paid great attention to the systematization and classification of symbolic and search semantics of the symbols. Noting the similarity of the ornamental symbolism in different cultures, Ethnography has no research tools to explain this universality. Unlike ethnographers, archaeologists try to uncover the symbolism of the ornaments involving mythology and material culture of the past. Archaeologists say about the dominance of the sacral and symbolic role of primitive ornaments. The redecorating nature of ornamental images is proved by their presence on the bottoms of vessels, on the reverse side of the plates, which were sewn onto clothing. Modern studies of the ornament are more universal, involving the analysis of the interdependence of the ornament with other components of culture, such as religious beliefs, traditions, technology, decorative arts. It should be noted in general, today the study of the ornament acquires the most general cultural character. A number of primitive ornaments researchers, in particular M. Gimbutas and A. Golan, believe that the basis of the original symbolism is the religion of the great goddess that reigned from the late Paleolithic ( archaeological artifacts fix it before 30 thousand years BC) to the bronze age. Later it was replaced by religions based on the male principle. Alternation and periodicity of elements ornaments, their symmetrical nature give reason to believe that the symbols and elements of ornaments form certain patterns – sustainable connections between elements. This gives basis for the application of the structural method for the study of ornaments. According to prof. Prichepiy.E. in the basis of the worldview of ancient people was the principle of the unity of man and the world. During the rule of the cult of the great goddess, this principle has acquired a kind of identity of the world and the great goddess. As a product of primitive syncretic mythological worldview, ornamental characters are both signs through which is passed a structure of the world, and the image of the gods that embody, represent a certain part of existence. The structure of the world, expressed in the symbols, was common model, according to which designed housing, embroidered towels, create clothes, household items, jewelry and more. Accordingly, the ornament in a primitive society is an icon, which depicts the main deity, the Great goddess (consists of seven deities – seven realms of underground water, wet earth, the earth's surface, sphere of life, the sky, the sphere of the planets and the starry sky). Thus it is a means of organizing information about the world, the instrument of his first awareness that occurs through the sacralization, and it is through the personification of the gods of certain structures in the world. For the first time world in the form of the deity appears before the person. So, the ornament is a complex cultural phenomenon. It changed its meaning and functions in the process of historical development. Originating as a sacred phenomenon, it has transformed into an aesthetic phenomenon. However, there are still many mysteries in a study of the ornaments. The main one is that the semantics of archaic symbols that are transformed into the elements of the ornament.

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