Please, take a little time to have a good look at the children’s works. Young painters have represented on many of them not only national folkloric stories and images, but also other peoples' fairy-tale heroes. They were aided by teachers that have initiated children into other countries’ peculiarities – morals and manners, traditional clothes and décor, and natural sceneries.
Our planet’s future depends on how good our children will grow up. Today their feelings and consciousness form, unfortunately, under the influence of TV screen, where you can see every day terrible news, violence, examples of reduced spiritual and aesthetic taste. All of them can be called new challenges and dangers for the society.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which had declared noble aims for unity, common development and cooperation, appreciated the project of educational programme for children “Children paint fairy tales”, worked out by the Moscow State Puskhin Museum of Visual Arts. It was actively supported by the SCO Secretariat that approached to the six member states of the organization - Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - with a proposal to organize an exhibition of children’s drawings.
The “Children paint fairy tales” programme motto can be formulated like this: “By learning tales we get to know each other.” Children from the six SCO countries were offered to make art work devoted to folk tales.
Folk tales are collective creation of the people, its general memory. They represent mentality, aesthetic taste, traditions, customs, age-old wisdom, and also real historical events experienced by the people. And all that is splashed with imagination, fantasy, and magic. A tale corresponds to children’s consciousness and gives the first idea about the world, demonstrating how everything is interconnected in it. In tales, just like in a real life, good and evil exist too. Normally, it is good that wins. The highest ethical standard and desire to teach a child faith in fairness, honesty, faithfulness and courage show up here in. The characters of fairy tales have to undergo various trials, and in case they possess such qualities as bravery, adroitness, diligence, kindness, they are capable of overcoming the most difficult obstacles.
Another quality of a tale is that it unites the family, consolidates ties between generations. The tale teaches to take good care of nature and animals. It is no mere chance that trees, rivers and mountains can speak in a tale. And rescued animals, birds and fishes help people.
An enormous work has been done by teachers, under whose direction children were creating. It was not restricted by retelling stories; they also had to acquaint children with popular clothes, decorations, appearance of a man of one ethnic origin or another, traditional habitation, typical landscapes, and with features of popular ornaments.
The exhibition has its own story and geography. For the first time it was open in Beijing on May 29, 2005 in halls of the China National Museum of Fine Arts. Main organizers of this children’s holiday were the SCO Secretariat, the State Puskhin Museum of Visual Arts, the China Artists’ Association and the China National Museum of Fine Arts. At the exhibition there were represented over 2 thousand works: drawings, engravings, collages, ceramic objects, papier-mâché, painted wooden dolls, fans and so on.
Afterwards the exhibition visited Astana (Kazakhstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Moscow, Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny, Yelabuga (Russia), Bishkek (Kirgizia), Chanzhi, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangchow (China). It continues living, being replenished with new works, showing cheerful intonation and humanist direction. This year the “Children paint fairy tales” exhibition begins its "tour” from Moscow, and will be represented on March 11 in the Moscow State Museum of the Orient.