MOSCOW, February 7 (RIA Novosti) - An exhibition that has just opened at the National Museum in the Russian autonomy of Tatarstan puts the spotlight on minuscule artwork. The 100-odd items on display include a steel flea, a calligraphed human hair, jewelry for insects, and other micro-size curiosities, Russia's Culture News Agency reports. All these objects have been executed by Anatoli Kononenko, a designer from Siberia. He took up minuscule art techniques in 1981, and has now risen to the heights of craftsmanship in making decorative designs on human hairs and on rice and poppy seeds.
The exhibition features, among others, a necklace and earrings set in a pine nut; a gold necklace on a ruby gem 1mm in diameter; chess figures in gold, 0.25 to 0.38mm tall; and the world's tiniest book (0.9 x 0.9mm), mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. This 30-page hardcover, bound together with silk threads, carries the text of Anton Chekhov's "Chameleon" and three illustrations to it.
The title of this unusual art show, "Siberian Lefthander," alludes to Nikolai Leskov's classical story about a left-handed blacksmith who contrives to shoe a dancing flea.
