Two thin fishes is the main part of the rations for the artists in 1917 and the mark of the severe times. Such ordinary things as a kerosine lamp and vobla (Caspian roach) are depicted with the expressive modesty and graceful austerity. These simple things represent the tragic feeling of the epoch, echo of heroic spirit and everyday life of the Civil War.
The artist has rejected the usual linear and aerial perspective, turned the surface of the table into the background, made the objects flat, depicted them too small in comparison to the immense space, isolated from the environment to emphasise the significance of the objects.
The work of Sterenberg as well as the “Herring” of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin is the romantic hymn of noble resistance of the people living in the revolutionary epoch.