Several major nonconformist artists have interpretations of the plot with a cat seizing a bird. Yakovlev has a cat with a bird in its teeth. Nemukhin has a cat with a card. Zverev has a similar subject. And here we have “Cat that ate a bird” by the main member of the Lianozovo group and the organizer of the Bulldozer exhibition, Oscar Rabin.

Alexander Kharitonov was aptly nicknamed “the preacher of good”. Not without a hint of a religious fondness. And so it is. Not only in narrative, but at the level of aesthetics Kharitonov drew on religious styles, especially Byzantine mosaics. He was also inspired by beadwork on church vestments. So his “pointillism” is not the divisionism of Paul Signac, but mosaics, beads and pearls in painting techniques.

The master of metaphysical still life, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, is today one of the most expensive artists of unofficial art. His auction record at the peak of the market was almost a million dollars. The philosophical basis of Krasnopevtsev's metaphysical still lifes is the idea of the frailty of the world and the desire for natural harmony, embodied in the equilibrium without symmetry.

And again the uncompromising Shulzhenko. Comparable to his scandalously famous “Outhouse” or “Rural dump”. There seemed to be a real existential horror in the current state of the Russian countryside. If it weren't for the sneering faces and muzzles of Shulzhenko’s characters. Hard Russian absurdism is a theme for which he is respected. And a theme for which he is hated.

Vladimir Yakovlev is not the most expensive artist of the 1960s. There are much more expensive ones. But he is a phenomenon. “An alien in human form”, as his friend, the artist Valentin Vorobyov, said. What happened to him was a triumph of a higher destiny. Nothing had foretold it. His eyes had been hurting since childhood. He never graduated from high school. Employment as a retoucher in the publishing house “Art”. But then came the Thaw. 1957. The festival. Visiting exhibitions with Vasiliy Sitnikov. And a sudden emotional breakthrough: “I want to be an artist!”

At first glance, it is clear that this is a work of a student of Aivazovsky. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Grigory Kapustin worked for several years in the studio of the outstanding marine painter in Feodosia, even made free copies of his works. Kapustin's paintings in tsarist Russia were printed on postcards in huge circulation. The artist was widely known and successful. Today his works are kept in many regional museums, including Peterhof, as well as in Russian and foreign private collections.

Weisberg formulated his credo simply: “I study the palette”. And when asked about his place in contemporary art, he answered that “all I have in common with my contemporaries is a wall”. The main thing for him was his own world. Color was his religion. And his temple was a room in a communal apartment on the Arbat, painted all white and turned into a studio. Where only the closest associates were admitted.

The inventor of the sfumato technique is considered to be the great Leonardo da Vinci. He figured out how to give an image a subtle blur, and learned how to reach a state “on the edge” — when the texture just begins to dissolve in the air and a haze appears. It is this technique that partly explains the mystery of Mona Lisa's smile. Sfumato sets the mood for many of the works of the 1960s artist Yuri Kuper. Even the word itself is associated with his name today. And the very old technique in his hands has received a new development.

Evgeny Rukhin is a legend of nonconformism. He is one of those uncomfortable and brave “rioters”, whom the authorities did not like very much. They preferred to be feared and kept their heads down. But Rukhin demanded, defended, disagreed. And he was not afraid. He fought for the right to work freely, developed a boisterous unofficial activity in Leningrad and became a real bone in the throat with the authorities. This is why so many refuse to consider his death in a fire in his studio in 1976 as an accident.

Shulzhenko's paintings have a phenomenal effect in practice — they completely capture the attention of any viewer, even those who are not his fans. A visitor can enter a room where ten masterpieces are hanging, but in a minute the main argument will be about Shulzhenko's work. And so it is this time. In front of us is “Three Napoleons”. A picture-parable. Three ages of a man. Three stages of destiny of the tyrant.