Why did Nikolina Gora become such a place of power in Zverev's work? Oksana Aseeva had a dacha in this picturesque village near Moscow. She was a widow of the poet Nikolay Aseev, a friend of Mayakovsky. A woman of progressive views, she was the “muse of Russian futurism”. But today we often think of her as the muse of Anatoly Zverev. Zverev loved to visit Nikolina Gora, lived in pleasant company and worked with pleasure.

Before us is a profound philosophical reflection on human destiny. What does man live for? What is his purpose? To preserve himself and savor the joys of life? Or to bear a burden? Or is all life a preparation for a feat? Ernst Neizvestny's favorite personages and protagonists of his works are people of the mission, restless, seeking, ready for self-sacrifice. Those who live not for joy, but for conscience. His heroes are icaruses and prometheuses. Devotees, flying into the sun and bringing light to people.

What many consider Sveshnikov's Kafkaesque romance is actually a sublimation of the difficult and traumatic memories of his youth. At 19, he was arrested on a trumped-up case of preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin and sent to the camps almost to certain death. Sveshnikov quickly lost his health and was driven to the brink of madness by starvation and disease. But he survived by a miracle thanks to the help of his friends, and his drawing sessions helped him keep his sanity. The works of the 1980s are considered by many connoisseurs to be the pinnacle of Sveshnikov's art. His phantasmagorias were becoming more and more complex in terms of subject, and painting was reaching the highest degree of elaboration.

An innovator of metaphysical still life, an intellectual, a loner, he chose the path of a recluse, avoiding fashion, noise and current trends. Today Dmitry Krasnopevtsev is one of the most expensive and sought-after masters of unofficial post-war art. His best works are bought with a fight, in a passionate rivalry. It can be seen that the artist is still a favorite of collectors, as in the epic times of Richter, Costakis, Sanovich.

Artist of the Lianozovo group. Participant of the historical exhibition in the “Beekeeping” pavilion in 1975. A distinctive master, whom colleagues called “a preacher of the good”. The famous collector and enthusiastTalochkin pointed out that Kharitonov's paintings are “a small gem, iridescent in hundreds of colorful and semantic shades”. And his technique resembles “a shimmering mosaic of fine smalt”.

The innovator of metaphysical still life, an intellectual, a loner, an artist out of time, a recluse, shunning fashion and current trends. Today Dmitry Krasnopevtsev is one of the most expensive and sought-after masters of unofficial postwar art. The artist is still a favorite of collectors, as it was in the times of Richter, Costakis, Sanovich.

Vyacheslav Kalinin , an artist of the 1960s, created his own very recognizable style, which has been called “carnivalism” — from the word carnival. Very aptly. Kalinin's characters are almost always fun. The regulars in his paintings are broken ladies, drunkards, and cheerful artist friends. His works are very moody, phantasmagoric, with elements of cubist deconstruction. And “A beer bar in Serpukhov” — a model example of the genre. A large, powerful painting. Published. The main theme. A jewel in the collection.

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.

Tushenosh — a porter of cut carcasses — is a philosophical metaphorical image in Chemiakine's work. For the artist, it was an opportunity to show the symbolic neighborhood of life and death, a reflection on the vanity of vanities and, of course, an expression of the aesthetic rapture received in The Belly of Paris. The “stomach”, or “belly of Paris”, the writer Émile Zola called the food market Les Halles — the epitome of a bustling commercial life and its attendant vices.