Irina Vakar focuses on the iconic figures and key directions of Russian avant-garde painting. Did "Russian Cézannism" exist? What role did Impressionism play at the beginning and end of the avant-garde artists' journey? How did the works of Larionov, Malevich, and Tatlin resemble those of Picasso? Why was abstraction an inevitable stage in Russian art?

How did the consciousness and life priorities of modernists and avant-gardists, such as Benois and Malevich, differ? And what did the avant-garde do when all battles were already lost? "People and Isms" answers all these questions.

Irina Vakar is the chief research associate at the Tretyakov Gallery, a specialist in Russian painting of the first third of the 20th century, and a curator of many exhibitions. Most chapters of the book are based on papers presented by the author at academic conferences.