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Back to exhibition reviews. At the New Tretyakov Gallery, the exhibition "The Road to the East. Russian Artists in Central Asia" runs until the end of September. The display tells of the place of Eastern motifs in the work of Russian modernist artists. The interest of Russian culture in the East is a notable and important tendency of the early twentieth century.

The project is built on the collection of "Eastern"-themed works from the Tretyakov Gallery's own holdings, shown to the public for the first time in such fullness. But precisely because this is the Tretyakov, I expected more of the exhibition: a brighter selection, a richer display. True, the leading names are all here: Natalia Goncharova, Robert Falk, Alexander Volkov, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexander Samokhvalov, Mikhail Kurzin. Yet if we are speaking of Turkestan, the region saw many Russian artists of far greater importance to it, though less widely known, and I should have liked to see more of their work. Some artists devoted to the Central Asian region a few months, others years and even decades, creating there, in Russian and Soviet Turkestan, an entire school.

Of course, the project is a must-see; this strand of Russian art is not, after all, shown very often. My own impression stems rather from the fact that I should have liked to mount this exhibition myself, and saw it quite differently, with a love for Turkestan, and not merely in historical and chronological terms.