Unimplemented design for the polychrome for the Academic Church of the Catholic University of Lublin. View of the church, the decoration of the presbytery and the rainbow wall

An important part of Jerzy Nowosielski's work are his polychrome paintings in Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic churches, which are an expression of the coexistence and interpenetration of Eastern and Western culture, icon painting and abstract art. In the early 1960s, the artist received a proposal to create a polychrome in the academic church of the Catholic University of Lublin. Similarly, to other monumental painting projects, Nowosielski treated them as a kind of ecumenical sermon, the aim of which was to show the unity of worship. According to the artist's letter to Andrzej Grzegorczyk, for Lublin he created "a completely uncompromising project" with a clear iconographic message, the realization of which was particularly important to him. Unfortunately, Nowosielski's vision was rejected, and the artist's idea is illustrated only by a set of design sketches, nine of which were purchased by the National Museum in Lublin thanks to a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. In these sketches Nowosielski developed not only the concept of painting decoration, but also of church equipment, including the form of the main altar. The project, consistent with the traditional programme of Byzantine churches, assumed a zonal composition of framed scenes filling the interior. As in the case of the projects for painting decorations of other temples, the artist prepared several versions of polychromies for the Holy Cross Church, differing in iconographic programme and colouring.

Despite Nowosielski's clear reluctance to depict Stations of the Cross in churches, which he called "a cruel, sadistic cartoon", "a cycle of sculpted or painted atrocities", one of the concepts of the church's decoration envisaged the presence of Passion scenes in the lower parts of the nave and the pillars, as well as in the presbytery, where the artist designed the final scenes of the Way of the Cross. Beside the figural scenes in the finial of the rainbow wall there is an abstract decoration consisting of geometrical fields. The sketch also contains a plan of the church with the successive stations of the Way of the Cross.

Anna Hałata