Modern critics have called these pictures “experiments, which are so hilariously motley that when looking at them the thought of serious art is far away, to the point that involuntarily the most discreet viewer smiles.”
Meanwhile, they admitted that “Mr. Mashkov apparently pursues something, strives towards something, but this way will hardly lead to anything: you can search for not just one human body, but hundreds of shades of tone, but when these tones are intensified to gross variegation, it turns out to be absurd. ” It even reached the allegations of ugliness: “Mashkov, in his Model, gave a disgusting piece of meat, on which green, purple, yellow, pink and other paints are smeared on in disarray.”
Each of the paintings depicts a nude woman in a natural pose – sitting or lying down. They are not so attractive as imaginative. Presented is not the ideal of the modern artist of the female body, and the type of naturalistic nature.