“The people discussed in this book saw the world differently from others. And they talked about it without words - in color, image, flavor, expressing their thoughts, feelings, sensations and experiences with the help of these means of fine art. The art of famous masters is extremely intense, complex, often contradictory, and sometimes dramatic, like time itself, in which they created. After all, various events in the history of mankind - global social cataclysms, revolutions, coups, world wars - changed ideas about the world and people in it, causing a revaluation of moral positions and aesthetic values. All this could not but affect the development of fine arts, for, as the poet M. Voloshin subtly noted, “artists are the eyes of humanity.” In the works of masters of past eras - from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the present day - many artistic directions. And the authors of the book, selecting a list of famous artists, sought to show representatives of various directions and movements in art. Each of them has the right to life, being an expression of creative search, experiments in the field of form, plot, color, composition and spatial design of works of art...”