Lev Zemchuzhnikov advocated the importance of national art and denounced the stifling teaching methods of the Academy in 'Neskol'ko zamechanii po povodu poslednei vystavki v S.-Peterburgskoi Akademii' ('Some Notes Regarding the Latest Exhibition at the Academy of Arts'), published in Osnova (The Foundation). It was published separately in a hundred copies and circulated among the students of the Academy, with the assistance of the adjunct professor in history painting Aleksandr Beideman, thus contributing to the fermenting of the disaffection of young Russian artists with the Academic system.