The history of impressionism, which once and for all influenced all subsequent art, covers only 12 years: from the first exhibition in 1874, where the famous “Impression” was presented, to the last, eighth, in 1886. Edouard Manet and Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin - with the story of whom this book begins - were among the first to speak out against the conventions of the “classical” painting that had emerged by that time. Vincent Van Gogh and Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Kazimir Malevich, unlike their predecessors, created their own reality on canvases. They did not try to convey to the viewer an impression - the beauty of everyday reality and convey what the eye sees at a particular moment. Paola Dmitrievna Volkova invites us on a journey from impressionism to surrealism, from impression to emotion, from the Venus de Milo to the “Black Square” in the next volume of the “Bridge over the Abyss” series. This publication is a revised cycle “Bridge over the Abyss” in that form , in which it was conceived by Paola Dmitrievna herself, in historical and chronological order. It will also include unpublished lectures from the personal archive.