[2] Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrokhin, who lived a great creative life, had the good fortune to study, to cooperate, to be in close relations, to be in associations and societies with many artists, among whom there were those whose trace in the art of the 20th century is comparable to the influence on the course of history of the most important discoveries of the era.

Almost seventy years later, he recalled his visits to the salon of E. Kruglikova, which, like her Paris workshop, turned into a kind of Russian cultural center, where the "high society" gathered, "but for all those present, art was the main thing", - visits to Maximilian Voloshin, in whose house, according to the artist, he felt "more at ease", where many compatriots who were flying around Lutetia also dropped in, and where he once had a chance to meet with Konstantin Balmont (they were briefly acquainted with 1904), "who brought his daughter, a girl, in a red coat" - here she is in memory of a 90-year-old artist!

[3][5] It is significant that in the very first words about the beginning of his apprenticeship, the artist recalls the library of the school, "about the enormous and exciting happiness" that "gave the collection of engravings of the Rumyantsev Museum".

[3] Dmitry Mitrokhin owes his first experiments in book graphics to the teacher of watercolors of the Stroganovka S. I. Yaguzhinsky, in 1904, who offered him "a small job for publishing houses", and appreciated it - Valery Bryusov, at that time - the chief editor of "Scorpion".

At the initial stage of the successful development of D. I. Mitrokhin's creativity as a book artist, magazine illustrator, of course, the assistance of E. E. Lanceray, who sent publishers to him, also affected ("I drew models with him.

Rare in beauty and sonorous expressiveness, chased performance - "Uyezdnoye" by E. Zamyatin (1916; publishing house of M. V. Popov), "Russian Tales of Grandfather Peter" by Arthur Ransom (1916; London and Edinburgh) and many others.

The old masters of the Venetian, Basel and Lyons printing houses and the Nuremberg engravers proved to be excellent teachers and consultants who did not refuse precious instructions and now to everyone who needs it.

"Surf" and many others, in the best of them - Academia (with which he collaborated for about six years): "Seven Love Portraits" by A. de Rainier (1920, 1921; Petrograd), Marina Tsvetaeva's fairy tale poem "Tsar Maiden" (1922); - perky feather drawings made in a manner that has already become traditional for the artist for the decoration of Edgar Poe "Golden Beetle" (1922), "Epsine" by Ben Johnson (1920, 1921; "Petropolis"), - illustrations by Victor Hugo (1923), Henri Barbusse, Octave Mirbeau, "Comedy Books" by Aristophanes (1930), "Ethiopics" by Heliodorus (1932) and many others, - the author of various decorative elements of many publications.

[3] In the 1920, D.I.Mitrokhin again comes into contact with children's literature, he illustrated and designed several books, among which the already mentioned "Golden Beetle" by Edgar Poe (1921-1922) and "A Journey to the Country of Cinema" by V. Shklovsky (1926), "October Alphabet" (1927) should be distinguished.

The appearance of the two-volume satirical novel by Karl Immerman "Munchausen" (1930-1932) suggests that the artist very ingeniously approached the solution of the entire structure of this publication: the characters of the work are sharply caricatured, which turned into peculiar, entertaining comments on the book, the layout of the title pages is witty; binding, flyleaf, dust jacket - everything is in harmony.

As can be understood from the artist's letters, he continued to create interesting illustrations, judging by the few surviving copies, already in mid-June 1941 - this edition was not destined to see the light of day...[3][6] He has developed several dozen publishing brands, trade emblems and labels.

A perfect master of composition, well versed in both the decorative and graphic components of the book, subtly feeling its nature, he made almost fifty ex-librises (most of them belong to 1919–1923) - these works are rightfully ranked among the best created in this genre in Russia.[who?]

[citation needed] The work of D.I.Mitrokhin underwent changes over the course of almost half a century of his vigorous activity in this field, as if anticipating the artist's appeal to the only possible for him, but also the most vivid, unique form of application of his talent - drawing, which from a certain moment will be destined to become universal expressive means of his worldview.

[5] Having the opportunity to retrospectively perceive this creative experience, one can observe in its development just such a tendency: since the mid-1930s, book graphics are no longer of paramount importance in the artist's work, they are beginning to give way to woodcuts, metal engraving, drawing and watercolors.

[5] D. I. Mitrokhin began engraving on wood "almost out of curiosity", under the influence of Vsevolod Vladimirovich Voinov - one of the initiators and propagandists of the revival of woodcuts, as an independent (non-reproduction) easel technique, with whom Dmitry Isidorovich was well acquainted with the "World of Art", - and on museum work; in 1941 they joined the militia together, survived the blockade, together they were in Alma-Ata.

Starting with techniques close to the "black style", when the artist gave preference to a white, slightly rough stroke, later he comes to "a silvery scale rich in half-tones and various textured elements"; he is alien to any kind of "showiness with virtuosity" - initially in woodcut he is attracted by pictorial expressiveness, for this purpose he sometimes illuminates prints with watercolors - sometimes barely noticeable, sometimes - corpuscular and juicy.

In the works of this period (1920s - late 1930s) landscape cycles predominate - there are many woodcuts and engravings (the artist deliberately did not turn to etching, appreciating the clean living line of a dry needle and chisel), lithographs dedicated to the then outskirts of Leningrad - the wastelands of Petrogradskaya sides, squares of islands.

It is here, thanks to the rapid development of the beginning of the century, interrupted by the First World War and the revolution, a kind of architecturally disorganized conglomerate of large apartment buildings with blank firewalls was created, wastelands with mighty old trees, endless fences and surviving wooden houses.

The works of these kindly ironic, now almost grotesque cycles, together with a series of lithographs and engravings of larger formats, most closely correspond to the named tradition ("Street types", "Ice cream man" "Football player" "Flower seller" "Floor polisher" "Petrorayrabcoop " other).

[5] At the same time, in the 1930s, in a series of end engravings by D.I.Mitrokhin, devoted to the life of the Azov region, romantic motives come to replace the "genre", dictated by the artist's interest "in the plot in its specific forms, concern for the decorative integrity and woodcut expressiveness of the sheet".

[5] In the 1920s, he turned to the same theme: landscapes of the Petrograd side, still life, Yeisk, however, it receives a plot expansion - the works acquire great dynamics, in some cases - the quality of painting.

This is the method which completely satisfied the artist, did not shackle, did not force to comply with the order, it is a universal form of self-expression he found, to which he, when consciously, and when unconsciously, did not go for many years, it is a synthesis of everything understood and suffered by him, resulting in an intoxicated, measured narration, composed by simple natural words of a clear and harmonious language of hundreds of works.

[3] Vasily Mikhailovich Zvontsov, head of the editorial staff of the publishing house "Aurora" (1973-1977) - the best Russian of that time, and preparing for publication a book about D. I. Mitrokhin, was forced to rebuild the monograph, after seeing in its entirety what the artist had done in recent decades.

And depending on the readiness of the person who came to perceive the search that worried the artist at that moment, D. I. Mitrokhin was perceptive - he always "saw the interlocutor very well", he laid out the last works in front of him: amazingly diverse landscapes seen from the same window, very meaningful performances - two, three objects, various interiors, seen in the same room...

Evreinov, by the way, D.I.Mitrokhin was well acquainted, and as an author, and as a playwright, and as a person (they even "agreed" in one edition - on the title of "Primitive Drama of the Germans" by the newly created graphics publishing brand "Polar Star"), - as, incidentally, he was familiar with many actors, writers.

At the time when he started, the general trend of spatial creativity meant "getting rid" of the dictates of an unambiguous understanding of nature - so P. Klee, following P. Cézanne, one of the first to challenge, according to R. M. Rilke in a letter to V. Gausenstein, "as shipwrecked or trapped in polar ice, overcoming myself, seeks to write down his observations and experiences until the last minute, so that their lives would make a trail on the blank spaces of the sheet, where no one had been able to get there before"[7] - this inevitable need to overcome the "academic impasse", finally exhausted itself of photonaturalism, but also - salon, taste, "manners", "imitations" and "reconstructions", when the imprinted objects were devoid of content; however, non-figurative art at some point reached the "great limit" - indifferent, both to the author and to the "consumer" of art, forms (in response to the dispassionate play of themselves) again became only a pretext, and not an expression of thought.

The author is a representative of the same "main forces" (once a Polish artist asked about the time of their arrival), who do not proclaim their novelty, without declaring themselves in military terminology as "vanguard units" (which ceased to be such, as soon as they were taken into their arms by mass culture, and are announced everywhere), calmly and consistently, without advertising and affectations, started doing well your favorite business, giving new meaning and space - there is no need for giant formats to express big thoughts.

Handicraft toys - whistles, horses, roosters, wooden, painted eggs - appeared in the drawings in the most unexpected incarnations and interpretations: they changed color, proportions, were transferred to an imaginary space, scenes, "little tragedies" were played out".

Only the great masters of this genre in the 17th century or in our time, G. Morandi, things, objects and fruits live such a full and deep and individual life, as in the drawings of D. I. Mitrokhin.

These plants, fruits and objects are seen by the artist with some extraordinary depth and insight, in each of them he feels like a person, locked in a form, dressed in color, but telling him about the secret of creation ... - E.