The diary of the artist, art historian, and employee of the Russian Museum Vsevolod Vladimirovich Voilinov (1880–1945) has the authorial title "Materials on Contemporary Art" (1921–1922) and immerses the reader in the tumultuous atmosphere of life in Petrograd during those years. Moreover, it allows one to appreciate the scale and multifaceted activities of Voilinov: as a graphic artist, museum worker, art critic, and art historian. Voilinov was a representative of the younger generation of the "World of Art" circle, his development occurred in the 1910s, with the most active work and creative self-actualization taking place in the 1920s. The universalism typical of many members of the World of Art found vivid confirmation in his remarkable personality. The diary mentions a vast number of individuals, both artists of the past and contemporaries. In addition to Boris Kustodiev, the first and main character of many pages of the diary, there are masters from the "World of Art" circle, colleagues from the Hermitage and Russian Museum: Alexander Benois, Stepan Yaremich, Georgy Vereysky, Dmitry Mitrokhin, Peter Neradovsky, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Anna Ostromova-Lebedeva, Fyodor Notgaft, and other artists, critics, and museum figures – Nikolay Punin, Erich Gollerbakh, Igor Grabar, Isaac Brodsky, Nadezhda Dobychina.
Comments are primarily devoted to works of domestic art and current events in the artistic life of the 1920s, as well as to the preceding period of the 1900s–1910s, which the author's interlocutors recall.
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