A man always wanted to be surrounded with the beautiful works. By the 20th century this desire took shape of a social order for mass replication of available copies, thereby gradually destroying the value of the origin. A replicated product, intended for the mass audience, should speak in common language. Art transforms the traditional language of form, material and circumlocution to the ideographic letter, which directly informs us, "what the artist wanted to tell us". The focus is made on "concept", instead of on own artistic means, and that kind of tendency is observed not only in Concept-art but practically everywhere. Time of texts and interpretations has come.

This intellectual mirage might be dispeled immediately on the acquaintance with the gallery of painting and sculpture "in traditional sence", presented here. Having bought a picture or a sculpture, made of traditional and modern materials, you are sure to realise that your life doesn't lose bodily roots and appreciate the value of the origin again.

Spectrum of stiles and genres, presented by Tomart-gallery, is rather wide and various: from Realism to Surrealism, from Postimpressionism to Minimalism, from genre painting to pictorial parable. However, it's difficult to interpret the painting of E. Ablin in the context of any definite style, thanks to the fact that his images are full of inherent greatness, mystery and the sense of Cosmos. The traditions of Russian Expressionism were established in works of eminent artists V. Bubnov and V. Kalinin. The intensive, extremely striking colour and textural stroke have become the characteristics of their artistic system. Realism is presented by the genre of landscape, so traditional for this stile of 2nd half of the 20th century, as well as by A. Kluev's Historical Photo-realism and G. Dmitriev's "optical illusions". Minimalistic works by V. Nasedkin, one of the most "museum" artists, amaze one by extremely laconic form and metaphorical profundity. Refined "Portraits of flowers" by D. Vouba revives tantalizing colours of Art Nouveau, quite conformable to the taste of Art Deco. Pictures by I. Lubennikov from Tomart-gallery, made in his late period, demonstrate the artist's interest to the themes of the Renaissance. The accuracy of description and the metaphoric language turn these works into the cultural signs of the present Time and the epoch going away. Symbolic painting by A. Grechanik, absurd at first glance and full of latent meaning, narrates about freedom and dependence on the conventionalities. Pictures by Y. Popkov, created in traditions of Constructive Romanticism, amaze one by lyric excitement, a feeling of anxious expectation, delicacy of imagery and polysemantic content. At last, painting in the manner of Postimpressionism, Cubism, Cubofuturism, Primitivism completes the portrait of art of the 2nd half of the 20th century. Intertwining of different "isms" is a rule of culture, which can be determined with the A. Breton's words: "Where Picasso passed, there is nothing to do". The great masters of the 20th century A. Matisse, K. Malevich, M. Duchamp, S. Dali, V. Kandinsky, who promised and executed changes, - they developed them to the end and left the others the possibility to imitate.

The 20th century, the century of discoveries and self-repeatitions, created the image of itself. This image remaind as our heritage, and we are the owners of it.