Natalia M. Kalashnikova

This article proposes an approach to identifying the artistic quality of traditional cultural artifacts, characteristic of ethnographic museology. Artistry is considered an additional characteristic of a folk culture object. The presence of artistry is determined by the task of conveying ethnographic information through symbolism incorporated into the design of the object, and by the desire, characteristic of the archaic world, to integrate the object into the expanded context of ritual and symbolic interactions. Ethnology’s attention to the entire spectrum of ethnic art reflects the main theme of this discipline: identifying the role of the archaic in various categories and states of culture. As a result, the primary goal of studying and processing the complex of artistic features in folk culture objects is the transformation of the artistic image into a semantic image. Deciphering the meanings of a semantic image allows for a deeper understanding of folk culture. The article concludes with examples of descriptions of artistic ethnographic artifacts, representing reconstructions of semantic images of the object environment of ethnic groups.