 Pankov and his studio mates had no idea of the long-standing traditions of Western and Russian art before they came to Leningrad, for they had simply never seen a picture.Perhaps Pankov ought to have been first taken to the Hermitage or the Russian Museum and shown the great masterpieces of Rembrandt and Rubens or Briullov and Alexander Ivanov.Uspensky and Mess did not want to rush things, because Pankov had never seen a picture in his life, except the portraits at the Institute, and might have taken the first masterpiece he saw for an inviolable standard to follow and surrendered his will to somebody else's way of vision.