Государственный Русский музей (альманах) The publication addresses the oeuvre of Nikolai Smirnov. The artist showed a tendency to the genre of "trompe-l"oeil" and developed his own trend in art: historical still-life or as the artist himself called the "historical theatre of objects". His compositions are complicated; his mastery is perfect. But the virtuoso mastery over the means of art is not an end in itself. The artist uses it to take one"s feeling of the world and one"s philosophy to the spectator.