The article considers modification of emblems on Russian stove tiles of the eighteenth century. The regularities and principles of the text and plots change are revealed. These are: denial, increased expression, reduction, shift in emphasis to the first word, search for new combinations of motto and image patterns. The focus is on paradoxical, contradictory emblematic plots, which are not popular in applied art, unlike the idyllic ones. Вut in some cases paradoxical and tragic shades of meaning appear in the texts on stove tiles. Such inscriptions are similar to Russian folk songs about unhappy love, separation, transience of joyful moments and they reproduce the themes of vanitas by their own means.
emblematics; applied art; tile; motto; vanitas.