Jerzy Nowosielski : painter and monastic theologian

The author re reads Jerzy Nowosielski’s thoughts on East and West as two spaces of art and religion. Analyzing the figures of memory and imagination appearing in Nowosielski’s writings, conversations, and paintings, he reveals that today they raise questions that have not been answered over the centuries of the development of theology and painting. The most important issue in this area is the importance of the painting of the Way of the Cross and the Crucifixion as icons that can be made thanks to the ex perience of abstract painting. It is thanks to him that the theology contained in the painting representation is possible. Nowosielski’s works on theology and the performance of an icon can be viewed in terms of monastic thought, because the very idea of an icon, resulting from the practice of painting and Orthodoxy, is for this artist the focus of the project of “a monastery of those who see the invisible”, created by a community of people who adore the invisible icons and those who feel their stigmatizing presence.