The work of B.M. Nemensky is inextricably linked to the eventsof the Great Patriotic War. This theme unites his works of different genres notso much by the choice of a plot associated with specific military actions, but bya special type of heroes – people with whom Boris Mikhailovich traveled alongthe front roads from Velikiye Luki in 1942 to Berlin 1945.Nemensky went to the front as an artist of M.B. Grekov’ studio. Using apencil and a brush, he made dozens of sketches of the battlefields, of soldiers,of people from the cities and villages ravaged by the war, of burnt houses andstreets covered with crushed brick.In Berlin in the spring of 1945, the artist created a series of drawings andsketches, which later became known as “the Berlin sketches”. Their authenticityand expressiveness in conveying the smallest details stem from his work on thebattlefield, and the rejection of false theatrics allowed them to reach a high levelof understanding of the “calamities of war”.The article offers an artistic analysis of the paint sheets of “The BerlinSketches”, it points to the connection between their artistic language and thetraditions of Russian art and its technique. Particular attention is given toB.M.Nemensky’s work with light, which defines the atmosphere of the sketches,becoming the main means of transmitting the emotional state. This role oflight characterizes the national fine arts all the way from ancient Russian iconpainting to the present day. In almost all works of Russian painting, you candiscern this approach to light, which is the expression of the spiritual energy ofthe world.Adherence to national traditions largely determined the emotional strengthand depth of meaning of the “Berlin sketches”, which became one of the mostexpressive artistic documents of the Great Patriotic War, upholding humanisticvalues characteristic of the best works of Russian culture