Khvostov's cows are an integral part of his landscapes, often coupled with a jet plane flying over them. We know from history that the artist himself is a passenger on that plane (en route to the city of Saratov), on a voyage to his fair lady, observing the bucolic landscape unfold before his eyes while enduring the sudden departure from the Earth's surface. Having seen a number of Khvostov's self-portraits, however, we can easily discern the artist's own features in the cow as well. The view becomes universal: it is a world seen from top downwards and vice versa. Surprisingly, the phlegmatic herbivore is a popular feature in the paintings of the master of modernism and postmodernism. — Dmitry Pilikin