About the book: 2008 / “On March 5th, the second exhibition of the “Society for Exhibitions of Artworks” opened at the Academy of Arts. With sad reflections I climbed the granite steps of our temple of the “liberal arts”. Once upon a time, I remembered, here, within these walls, all Russian artistic forces united; here, along with the works of venerable professors, stood the first experiments of the current Russian school: Messrs. Ge, Kramskoy, Makovsky, Jacobi, Shishkin... Here it was possible to trace step by step the entire chronicle of our art, and now! Division, enmity!..»