Venerable Sergius of Radonezh (Сергий Радонежский, Sergii Radonezhsky)—also translated as Sergey Radonezhsky or Serge of Radonezh was a spiritual leader and monastic reformer of medieval Russia. Together with Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, he is one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most highly-venerated saints.

M.V.Nesterov, as well as F.M.Dostoevsky, believed that for Russia rescue "from the people leaves, belief and its humility", and on the cloths aspired to confirm a real moral ideal in which searches often addressed to the past of Russia. Also has found this ideal in Sergiy Radonezhsky - the founder to the Troitcko Sergieva Lavra (The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, a monastery), the great devotee, the miracle man, the collector and the defender of the earth Russian.

Often be in the Troitcko Sergieva Lavra, Nesterov has entered into the world of national legends and the beliefs, connected with Sergiy Radonezhsky.

The image the Sergiy Radonezhsky did not cease to excite the artist throughout all his life. For more than 50 years of creative work Nesterov has created 15 big products devoted to its favourite hero. The picture was the first in this series Vision to Youth Bartholomew.

Sergiy for the artist - "the abbot of the earth Russian". M.V.Nesterov studied its acts not on lives, and under chronicles yes under annals, therefore in its eremites and sacred there is no also a shade of a repentance and prayful ecstasy, and they live not in the smoked cell, and among the great Russian Nature. The artist so spoke about it: "I did not write and did not wish to write history in paints. I wrote a life of the good Russian person of XIV century, sensitive to the nature and its beauty, in own way loving the native land and in own way aspiring to the truth. I transfer a legend combined in old years by native my people about people which he has noted love and memory".

Triptych «Works of Saint Sergiy».