When reading the novel by German artist Alfred Kubin, first published in Russian, one is reminded of the gloomy atmosphere of Meyrink and Kafka, the apocalyptic expression of Munch and Goya, the whitish fog on Redon’s canvases, through which eerie visions of the author’s subconscious break through to the viewer. Alfred Kubin is worthy of his contemporaries - published in 1909, the novel fully reflects the state of painful decadence of the beginning of the century, the pessimistic mood of Europe on the eve of great upheavals. The plot itself will not surprise the sophisticated reader: the story of another utopia, a kingdom of dreams, realized by a mysterious half-man, half-god in the foothills of Tibet, her everyday life and terrible death “through the eyes of an eyewitness.” Something else is striking - firstly, these are 52 author’s graphic sheets for the novel; at first glance they are subordinate to the text, illustrative, at some point they begin to live an independent life, attracting our attention to themselves almost more than the text itself. Leafing through the book again, you are surprised to discover that, starting from seemingly innocent travel sketches on the first pages, to the hellish chaos of lines on the last, the inexorable logic of the plot leads them - the story told in graphics, in some places even turns out to be more expressive than the modernist verbosity of individual chapters . Alfred Kubin, who gained his fame primarily as an artist, remains true to himself here too. Secondly, and I think this was not the least of what attracted publishers, the novel is surprisingly in tune with modern times. Willy-nilly, you will think about the frightening similarity between the alarming expectations of the early 20th century and our current uncertainty. Previous generations of readers of the novel had already admired the brilliant foresight of the nightmares of the world wars that reshaped Europe; now it is our turn to compare the intricacies of the plot with our own fate, fortunately, plenty of material for comparisons has accumulated over the past hundred years. At the same time, we would not want the reader to get the impression that that we are dealing with social fiction - rather, it is philosophical prose, an attempt, hiding behind a fictional plot, to answer the questions asked of the century by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. “The Demiurge is dual” - for a modern reader this idea will not be a revelation, but the brightness and persuasiveness of Alfred Kubin’s figurative language, his skill as a draftsman will illuminate the truths that have become familiar in a new way. A small biographical article by O. B. Michkovsky, placed on the last pages, accompanied by a dozen works by the artist from different years and several photographs, successfully complements the book, transferring it to the category of books that strive to inherit the principles of academic publications.

A. Vdovin