St Nicholas 

Jerzy Nowosielski painted St Nicholas, likely in Poland, sometime in the late 20th or early 21st century. As a work of art, this piece is fascinating for the way it navigates the tension between tradition and modernity. Nowosielski, deeply rooted in the traditions of Eastern Orthodox iconography, infuses his art with a contemporary sensibility. The Byzantine tradition that he takes as his starting point is evident, but so too is the reductive, geometric quality associated with modern abstraction. This image, and others like it, invites us to consider the place of religious imagery in modern secular societies. Is it merely an aesthetic object divorced from its original spiritual function, or does it retain some power to evoke the sacred? To answer that, we might look to archives, theological texts, and histories of religious practice. Each can help us understand the complex relationship between art, belief, and culture.