The diary of artist, art historian, and Russian Museum employee Vsevolod Vladimirovich Voinov (1880–1945) is titled "Materials on Contemporary Art" (1921–1922) and immerses the reader in the turbulent atmosphere of Petrograd life during those years. It also offers an opportunity to appreciate the scope and diversity of Voinov's work: as a graphic artist, museum worker, art critic, and art historian. A member of the younger generation of the "World of Art" circle, Voinov formed in the 1910s and experienced his most active work and creative self-realization in the 1920s. The universalism characteristic of many members of the "World of Art" movement was vividly demonstrated by his extraordinary personality. The diary mentions a vast number of individuals, both past and contemporary artists. In addition to Boris Kustodiev, the first and main subject of many of the Diary's pages, these are masters of the "World of Art" circle, colleagues from the Hermitage and the Russian Museum: Alexander Benois, Stepan Yaremich, Georgy Vereisky, Dmitry Mitrokhin, Pyotr Neradovsky, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Fyodor Notgaft, and other artists, critics, and museum officials—Nikolai Punin, Erich Hollerbach, Igor Grabar, Isaac Brodsky, and Nadezhda Dobychina.

The commentaries are primarily devoted to works of Russian art and current artistic events of the 1920s, as well as the preceding period of the 1900s and 1910s, as reminisced by the author's interlocutors.