The period of waiting that precedes Easter Sunday is always filled with intense energies, bringing to our conscious or unconscious attention the sacred dimension of the world we live in. This condensation that arises at the intersection of the sacred and the profane during these days illustrates, in fact, the symbolic density of the mystery that fascinates us year after year: the mystery of the afterlife, in the Christian key of resurrection. 

In this context, one evocative moment is that of Jesus Christ on the cross, with the Virgin Mary at his feet, bearing witness to this terrible scene. In Daniela Grapă’s work, the painting The Kiss 2 portrays this moment with sensitivity, in the rose-toned hues characteristic of her art. Like a mirror image, the Virgin Mary’s kiss upon Jesus’ feet serves to undo Judas’ kiss of betrayal—a gesture that marked Jesus’ presence in the crowd and led to his arrest and ultimately his tragic death. At the same time, by cropping the frame to show only Jesus’ bloodied feet, the painting shifts the focus heavily onto the presence of the Virgin, who is not depicted with her usual features. This choice simplifies the scene and brings its sacredness into a more accessible frame of reference for the “lay viewer.” 

Between Gaze and Prayer 

What Daniela Grapă achieves in this painting is a reinterpretation of the Passion and a reconfiguration of compassion in a tone that allows for a more personal approach—one more affective than liturgical. The artist addresses other moments from the Christic drama as well, maintaining their formal simplicity without sacrificing the essential strength of the image as it approaches the status of an icon. 

In a different thematic register, we can also look at Flora Răducan’s painting After the Rain, where a sense of reverie helps filter emotion through the medium of nature. The painting is compositionally simple, the landscape carrying a meditative character. This fragility can itself be perceived as a form of prayer—or as a space where silence is enough to create the proper setting for one. You can pray everywhere, and you can pray always, even in your chamber. Everywhere you go, you carry your secret chamber with you. Your chamber is your thought. — Saint Ambrose of Milan. 

If these two approaches support introspection, then Carmen Marin’s Beyond the Dark reminds us that hope often arises from the very darkness we all know—and that, if we could see it, it would shine, standing out from the surrounding blackness like a lighthouse. In the painting, the scene—reminiscent of the entombment—is schematically cut out from the background, which seems to swallow the artist’s signature blue. Against this backdrop—resembling the sky just before sunrise—the image carries a message of hope, comfort, and encouragement to understand that prayer does not necessarily require words. Sometimes, seeing is enough when the eyes truly look—either outward or inward. 

Silent Revelations  

We’ve already mentioned how nature helps shape a meditative space, one essential for observing the sacred dissolved into the profane. In Georgeta Manea Josan’s Secret Garden, we’re reminded that eyes are always watching—eyes that see us, follow us, and often remain hidden from our view. This secret garden has a protective air; the eyes drawn by the artist evoke representations of Saint Lucia. The composition’s delicacy and fragility contrast subtly with the color palette, producing an effect akin to camouflage—an undergarden, a hidden space of silent revelation. 

Similarly, Marijana Bițulescu’s tapestry Message Between Heaven and Earth presents a visual discourse composed of multiple layers: a golden central one, several layers of pinkish silk stitched with fragments of actual text, and an element resembling a bud emerging from the black center—green with a golden tip. The message between heaven and earth might be the very verticality of the human being—the path of dialogue between two planes, reduced to the form of a communication channel. At its end, the hopeful bud emphasizes the textile material’s specific flexibility and pierces the two-dimensional space. 

The sacred in contemporary art no longer shouts from stained glass windows—it whispers through simple gestures, distant gazes, muted colors, and visual silences. It is no longer imposed, but suggested. It no longer promises salvation, but encourages rediscovery. In front of a work like The Kiss 2, a tapestry like Message Between Heaven and Earth, or a garden hidden from view, we are not asked to believe—only to be present. And perhaps, in that quiet presence, lies the beginning of a prayer that needs no words. Because sometimes, what cannot be spoken is expressed through the gaze—and art becomes the unseen altar of the heart.  

Ph.D. Researcher Andrei FĂȘIE