The book is dedicated to the wonderful artist Konstantin Somov (1869–1939). At the beginning of the 20th century, he was a member of the World of Art association, which proclaimed the priority of the aesthetic principle, and was one of the most prominent exponents of its collective style, and after the revolution he continued to work actively in exile. The book about him, on the one hand, does not violate the traditions of the widespread genre of “life in art”; on the other hand, art itself is presented here as a kind of psychoanalytic tool that allows one to reconstruct the personality of the author. The text examines not only the “Russian”, but also the “Parisian” period of Somov’s work, which usually does not fall into the field of view of researchers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Konstantin Somov (1869–1939) was a member of the World of Art association "and was one of the most prominent exponents of the collective style of the association, and after the revolution he continued to work actively in exile. The book about him, on the one hand, does not violate the traditions of the widespread genre “life in art” (chronological and thematic principles are followed in the sequence of chapters), on the other hand, art itself is presented here as a kind of psychoanalytic tool that allows us to reconstruct the personality of the author from various angles . The text examines not only the “Russian”, but also the “Parisian” period of Somov’s work, which usually does not fall into the field of view of researchers.

The series “Essays on Visuality” is conceived as a series of “smart books” on topics of fine art, each of which offers a new conceptual view of known circumstances. The texts here will not be accompanied by too extensive illustrative material: visuality should be revealed through the word - through interpretations and versions of familiar, sometimes, plots. The clash of methodologies, research strategies, genres and discourses is intended to present and the field of culture itself, and the field of science about it as a single, complexly organized space, and not in the usual form of a plane with strictly protected territorial boundaries.