In this first of two planned posts about St. Sebastian, I’ll talk about his background and artistic portrayal generally.
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Who was he?
Sebastian is a Christian saint who lived in the 200s. He joined the Roman army and was promoted to protect the emperor, Diocletian. But authorities discovered that he had been converting soldiers to Christianity and ordered him to be executed by being shot with arrows. Although he survived this with the help of Saint Irene of Rome, who nursed him back to health, he once again appeared before Diocletian to oppose his cruelty. Diocletian then had Sebastian beaten to death.
Sebastian is now a popular saint and is the patron of archers, athletes, and warriors. He is a protector against the plague, which was thought in medieval times to be spread by the arrows of angels. He is also, to some, a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community. Sebastian has been canonized (officially declared to be a saint) by many sects of Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Church.
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FROM LEFT: ‘St. Sebastian Triptych‘ (and detail view of same), by Giovanni del Biondo, c.1375-1380, Italian, paint on wood (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence, Italy) (public domain);
‘St. Sebastian’, by Raphael, c. 1501-1502, Italian, Oil on Wood (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, Italy) (public domain)
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Symbols
Sebastian is nearly always depicted as being tied to a pillar, post, or tree, shot with some number of arrows. The actual number of arrows, and the deadliness of their locations, are variable by the artist’s choice and the style of the time period — sometimes a single arrow for symbolic identification, but often many, many more.
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[TOP OF PAGE]: ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian’ (detail), by Simon Bening, c. 1535-1540, Flemish, manuscript leaf from Munich-Montserrat Hours (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) (public domain);
FROM LEFT: ‘Saint Sebastian’, by Anonymous, c. 12th-14th Century, Fresco (Esglesia de Sant Andreu, Salardú, Vall d’Aran, Spain) (public domain);
‘Saint Sebastian’, by Anonymous, c. 1425, Masonry Sculpture (detail of southern portal) (Basilica of Saint Nicholas, Überlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) (photo by Wolfgang Sauber; used under Creative Commons License);
‘Calvary: Saint Sebastian’ (detail), by Joan Mates, c. 1417-1425, Catalan, tempera, gold leaf & metal plate on wood (from Refectory Chapel of Pia Almoina, Barcelona, Spain; now in collection of Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain) (photo by Jaume Meneses; used under Creative Commons License);
‘Saints Stephen and Sebastian’ (detail), by Anonymous, c. 1470s, stained glass (northern wall of Saint Gregory Church, Grongörgen, Haarbach, Germany) (photo by Wolfgang Sauber; used under Creative Commons License)
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Early/Medieval art
Medieval art depicts Sebastian closely to how he probably looked at the time of his death—in his thirties with a beard or stubble. In the usual style of medieval art, he was usually shown with a flat expression devoid of emotion and was frequently dressed in contemporary clothes.
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FROM LEFT: ‘St. Sebastian’, by Andrea Mantegna, c. 1480s, Italian, tempera and oil on canvas (Louvre Museum, Paris, France) (public domain);
‘Saint Sebastian’, by Sandro Botticelli, 1474, Italian, oil on poplar wood (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany) (public domain);
‘Saint Sebastian’, by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1614, Flemish, oil on canvas (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany) (public domain);
‘St. Sebastian’, by Tilman Riemenschneider, c. 1490, German, linden wood sculpture (Bavarian National Museum, Munich, Germany) (used under Creative Commons license; name of photographer not listed) (Note the many holes in Riemenschneider’s statue into which arrows may be placed to assist viewers with identification);
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Renaissance art
During the Renaissance, depictions of Sebastian changed wildly. Instead of the comparatively older, bearded man he was shown as before, Renaissance artists portrayed Sebastian as a handsome, beardless youth, often wearing nearly nothing. These artists used his story as an excuse to paint or sculpt a nude figure, since the subject was religious and therefore not objectionable. This Sebastian was not stoic, but often had an expression of enlightenment or ecstasy.
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FROM LEFT: ‘St Sebastian Tended by St Irene’, by Marco Antonio Bassetti, c. 1620, Italian, oil on canvas (Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille, France) (public domain);
‘St. Sebastian Aided by St. Irene’, by Trophime Bigot, 17th Century, French, oil on canvas (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City) (public domain);
‘Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene’, attributed to Georges de La Tour, early 1630s, French, oil on canvas (reportedly from a convent near Marseille, France; now in Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas) (public domain);
‘St. Sebastian tended by St. Irene’, by Gorges de La Tour, c. 1649, French, oil on canvas (Louvre Museum, Paris, France) (compare with La Tour’s 1634-1643 copy and c. 1650 copy in Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany) (all three in public domain);
‘St Sebastian Attended by St Irene and Her Maid’, by Dirck van Baburen, c. 1615, Dutch, oil on canvas (Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid, Spain) (public domain);
‘Saint Sebastien priez pour nous’, by Eugène Hucher and son Ferdinand Hucher, Carmel du Mans stained glass workshop of Le Mans, c. 1880s, stained glass (window in south wall of nave, Église Saint-Martin, Réthoville, Manche, Basse-Normandie, France) (photo by Andreas F. Borchert; used under Creative Commons License)
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St. Irene Intervenes
During the late Renaissance and afterward, it also became popular to depict St. Sebastian as he was tended to by St. Irene of Rome. In such depictions, St. Irene and her maid are generally shown either untying St. Sebastian from his place of would-be execution or tending to his wounds afterward. It was most prominent as an artistic subject from the 1610s to 1670s, and seldom depicted before that. Along with a general rise in devotion to St. Sebastian during this time because of widespread plague outbreaks, emphasis on St. Irene’s role also reflected Counter-Reformation ideas. It emphasized an active path to feminine sainthood within the Roman Catholic Church (as contrasted with medieval depictions of martyrdom, which instead stressed giving one’s life for God).
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FROM LEFT: St. Sebastian detail on Dreifaltigkeitssäule (Holy Trinity ‘Plague Column’), carved by Sebastian Stumpfegger from model by Antonio Beduzzi, completed 1723, Austrian/Italian, white marble monument (Hauptplatz, Linz, Austria) (public domain);
‘St. Sebastian’ by Claude Dejoux, 1779, French, marble sculpture (reception piece for French Royal Academy, seized during French Revolution; now in Louvre Musuem, Paris, France) (photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen; used under Creative Commons License);
‘Saint Sebastian’, by Simon Raweder, 1909, media not stated, Austrian (statuary component of high altar, Assumption of Mary Parish Church, Hirschbach im Mühlkreis, Austria) (photo by Wolfgang Sauber; used under Creative Commons License);
‘St. Sebastian’, by Melchior Paul von Deschwanden, 1877, media not stated, Swiss (altarpiece on right side of St. Martin Parish Church, Markdorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) (photo by Andreas Praefcke; used under Creative Commons License)
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Classical revival art
Since the classical revival was essentially a revival of the Renaissance, Sebastian was depicted in a very similar way to that time period, with an expression of illumination and a youthful figure. If anything, these versions of Sebastian feel even younger and more human than those of the Renaissance.
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Costume design for dancer Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960) in the leading male role of ‘Le marthyre de Saint Sébastien’ (a musical play collaboration by playwright Gabriel D’Annunzio and composer Claude Debussy), by Léon Bakst (1911) (public domain);
(I don’t have the rights so I’m not displaying it directly, but an excellent stylized contemporary image can be viewed here.)
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Modern art
Sebastian is still a very popular subject for painters today. Due to the breadth of modern art, it is impossible to make very many generalizations about modern depictions of Sebastian. Most works focus on a specific thing about Sebastian or his situation—the arrows or the post, for example—while some instead try to represent who Sebastian is or what he is really experiencing.
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Pop culture
St. Sebastian iconography was the basis for one of the most controversial American magazine covers of the 20th Century. In April 1968, Esquire portrayed famed boxer Muhammad Ali as Sebastianesque (imitating a 15th Century work by Florentine painter Francesco Botticini). This was after Ali had professed pacifism in response to his Vietnam War draft notice, refusing to go to war, causing him to be stripped of his world heavyweight title. The resulting debate about protest, nonviolence, Black inequality, and figurative martyrdom became even more relevant shortly after publication: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while the Ali issue was still on newsstands. You can read more about it in an Esquire retrospective, and also in Rolling Stone or Artsy.
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In summary
St. Sebastian exemplifies one reason religious and mythological art is so captivating—the range of depictions and interpretations of a single subject or story across time. The popularity of myths and Bible stories to artists over hundreds of years and in different locations has produced fascinating change to compare and contrast.
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In my next entry, I’ll discuss places to see St. Sebastian portrayed in Northern California art specifically.
Even by martyrdom standards, Saint Sebastian’s [not-quite-] death is visually compelling. And he didn’t just evolve across successive artistic periods, but even within the bodies of work of individual artists. He is one that many painters returned to again and again.
You already pointed out several versions by La Tour. Mantegna also painted him multiple times. Rubens painted him more than once. Nicolas Renier painted him a LOT. Durer painted Sebastian and revisited him in engravings (although one of those prominently featured an arrow right to the head, so extra kudos to Saint Irene and her maid for bringing him back in that version).
There’s a Nicolas Régnier painting (Saint Sebastian Attended by Irene) here in Northern California! I’m including it in Part 2.
Saint Sebastian seems to have had at least one very bad day.
When I was deployed to Iraq, my friend sent me a pendant of Saint Michael since he is the patron saint of the Airborne.
If Saint Sebastian is the patron saint of archers, and they tried to kill him by shooting him full of arrows, I don’t want to think of how Saint Michael got associated with being flung out of airplanes at a low altitude.
Very! And you’ve spotted a definite running theme in the patronages of Christian saints and how they’re depicted in art.
I expect I’ll show some other examples in this blog in the future, so hopefully you’ll see those. But to give a further example now, do an image search for “Saint Lucy in art” (she’s venerated as a protector of sight and the patroness of the blind) and see the paintings that pop up. They’re… eye-opening.
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