Jamno culture

Highly developed artistic skills of the former residents of Jamno, resulted in beautifully decorated everyday items. At first it was woodcarving only: engraved geometrical and plant ornaments with a repeated heart motive, which is so typical of Jamno; in time, this also included polychromy.

The crowning achievements of the Jamno folk artistic work undoubtedly include painted armchairs and chairs: with a rich colour palette and a wonderful composition of ornamental motifs. The primary decorative elements were made with the use of templates; in spite of this, it is difficult to find two identical items. Dissimilarity was achieved by using various colours and motif compositions, which in result offered a wide range of artistic solutions. Furniture ornamentation was typical of Jamno only. It was so characteristic that even today one does not find it problematic to determine their cultural identity. The polychromy includes blue, green, red, yellow and white (with various shades) colours with floral ornaments: most frequently, these are the motifs of tulips, wild flowers, rosette and heart. The decoration was axial and symmetrical, and there is a vase in the centre.

It was also the so-called house industry, i.e. weaving and lacemaking, where the residents could pursue their artistic and aesthetic interests. The Jamno residents prided themselves on beautiful clothes. For these they used linen, fulled cloth and cotton that was weaved in the village. It was lace that constituted an important element of women’s dress. This was mainly used to ornament headgear: bonnets for married women, and above all, the so-called forehead covers: headbands that were worn both by maidens and married women. Embroidery was used less frequently in ornamentation.

Cross stitch templates have been preserved in museum collections. These templates, apart from the alphabet (letters were used for embroidering monograms on underwear, bed linen and towels: the bride’s dowry), biblical scenes, stars, single flowers and vase compositions, which were analogical to those on furniture, yet were presented in a strongly geometric form. Definitely fewer colours were used: it was green, dark blue, brown shades and occasionally red that dominate.

Another variety of embroidery used in Jamno ornamentation is the so-called linear embroidery, which is characterised by the presence only of a contour of the decorative element. For example, it was gloves that were decorated in this manner, with a heart in the centre around tulips.

Jamno residents had the sense of beauty and the need for ornamentation through all of their lives. Even tombs were decorated with polychromy just like furniture. The floral ornament constituted a frame for folk sayings of an epitaphic nature or biblical verses.

 

Nowdays  history has come full circle: Jamno and its extraordinary culture has once again become an element of the promotion of the Koszalin town.