St Sebastien, gay icon (3) in contemporary paintings, photographs, stained glass etc.



Today, ie during 20th & 21st century, Sebastien's portrays continue to show him often in a kind of submissive, young muscular body. Look at some photographs from F. Holland Day (USA), who imagined the martyr based on working-class youths, and those of David Vance, von Gloeden, Mishima.


F Holland Day

David Vance

Wilhem von Gloeden

Yukio Mishima

And the illustration for the movie Sebastiane by Derek Jarman, in which the only language spoken is latin.

Also the paintings from Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau (France), Anto Carte below.

Odilon Redon

 

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau

Anto Carte (1886 1954) c.1934

Interesting are the works of Salvador Dali, Egon Schiele, Keith Haring...


Salvador Dali

Egon Schiele - Self portrait as St Sébastien 1915 Vienna Austria

Keith Haring

And the other various contemporary artists that you can see below also contributed to make St Sébastien a real gay icon.

Soungouroff (1911-1982) c. 1947

Demard Philippe (1959- ) French.

Diego Tolomelli, Italian artist, has created many religious stained-glass works, and also many homoerotic subjects, including the below St Sébastien. Last month, the Dutch art gallery Mooiman, mentioned previously on this blog, displayed a full exhibition about these homoerotic stained-lass works, mainly young men, some embracing passionately. The Avocate interviewed him last month.

Diego Tolomelli aka Iko

Ernesto Lozano (Mexico)

Kinu Sekigushi (France)

Maurice Heerdinck (Dutch)

Peter Colstee (Dutch) 1991



          

Alfred Courmes (1898-1993) French painter

In this selection, lets not forget Pierre et Gilles, the famous French artists (each piece is a unique painted large photograph) who created a serie of St Sébastien (6 of them are below). One of them also appeared on the cover of the recent exhibition catalogue 'Masculin Masculin' in Paris.

 

 

Pierre & Gilles artists in front of one of their St Sébastien.  (retrospective in Berlin, Germany).

Some more artists representations of St Sébastien.


Sadao Hasegawa

Sven de Rennes

In the next post, and to close this chapter, we will see some contemporary sculptures of St Sébastien.

 

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Sources and more info:

A stunning collection of contemporary représentations in these 2 blogs:

• http://arkos.blog2b.net/
• http://adherentsbdmonazur.blog2b.net/

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St Sebastien, gay icon (2), Renaissance and other paintings

Lets continue our discovery of St Sébastien as a gay icon, with some of Renaissance paintings.

In terms of paintings, Guido Reni achieved his St. Sébastian (see below) around 1615/1616, and it was described as "... a lovely brown boy, with crisp, clustering hair & red lips, bound by his evil enemies to a tree & through pierced by arrows, raising his eyes with divine impassioned gaze toward the Eternal Beauty of the opening Heavens," by Oscar Wilde when he saw it at the Palazzo Rosso, in Genoa, where it still belongs. 

Guido Reni paintings of St Sébastien reportedly captivated Yukio Mishima.

St Sébastien by Guido Reni - 1615

During the Renaissance, male nudes were not so frequent on paintings, other than the Christ. Sébastien was probably next, so he began to appear in many paintings by other artists like Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Giuseppi Cesari, Carlo Saraceni, Giovanni Bazzi (known as “Il Sodoma” as he was known to paint, and maybe more, young men), Tintoretto, Titian, Girgione, Perugino, and more.



Painting by Botticelli - 1474 - Chiesa di San Maria Maggiore, Firenze, Italy.



Paintings by Mantegna - 1480 - Louvre Museum.

Painting by Messina - 1479 - Dresden Museum

Painting by Giovanni Bazzi known as Il Sodoma -1525

Polyptich by Giovanni Bellini - St Vincenzo Ferreri, Italy

Pietro Perugino - detail of 'Madonna and child with St John the Baptist and St Sebastien' 1493 - Uffizi - Firenze (Italy).

St Sébastien tied to a column, by Pietro Perugino - 1510
 

Pierre Paul Rubens, Hans Memling, Camille Corot, El Greco, Florenzo di Lorenzo, have also painted beautiful St Sébastien.



Hans Memling - 1470. Musee des Beaux Arts, Bruxelles (Belgium).



Pierre Paul Rubens (1577-1640) 1604 - 'St Sébastien helped by angels' - Rubens Museum - Anvers (Belgium) 



Florenzo di Lorenzo c. 1445




Camille Corot c.1850




El Greco c.1600

St Sebastien, gay icon (1) Renaissance and other sculptures

St Sébastien is probably the most depicted Saint. And the most depicted gay icon today. He is represented most of the times since the Renaissance as a young, slim, athletic, sensual, beautiful young man (even though during the first centuries he had another image, at least older). Maybe it is the reason he became a gay icon.

Catedral de Se. Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by Brian McMorrow.

Hundreds if not thousands of paintings, drawings, mosaics, engravings can be seen from St Sébastien. Sculptures from known artists are less numerous, but still we will present a few of them in this post, together with old paintings. Another post will present selected contemporary paintings, photographs, etc. 

St Sébastian sculpture designed by Bernini but sculpted by Antonio Giorgetti - Catacombe Roma Italy.

According to the legend, or historical data, Sebastian was captain of the Praetorian guard, and a Christian. By converting some Romans, the Emperor Diocletien condemned him to be executed by arrows. Reportedly, the archers aimed to miss his heart as he was a very respected commander. So Sebastien survived temporarily. But Diocletien sentenced him again to death, by being broken on a wheel.

Sculpture by Claude Dejoux - 18th century - Louvre Museum - Paris, France

During the Renaissance, Sebastien was often represented tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows. Therefore he became the Patron Saint of archers, and later on, with the changes brought by artists making him quite erotic, he became also, unofficially, the Patron Saint of gays, or at least of youth and male beauty.

Sculpture by Nicolas Blasset - 1635 - Amiens Cathedral - France 

From that time, Sebastian was often portrayed with a naked twisted youth body and a small loincloth. He looks like in (religious) ecstasy, penetrated by arrows. A very homoerotic icon. 

St Sébastien marble sculpture - St Michael's Church - Gent, Belgium.

As we focus on sculptures, we will only show a selection of some examples of other media in the next posts.  We suggest you look at the list of sources : some of them compiled an impressive quantity of St Sébastien art representations.



Marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) - Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, Spain 

Catedral de Se - San Paolo, Brazil. Picture by Brian McMorrow

Adam Lenckhardt - Ivory - c.1642 Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna (Austria).

Sources:

lA CHAIR ET LA FLECHE - Le regard homosexuel sur saint Sébastien tel qu'il etait representé en Italie autour de 1500. http://semgai.free.fr/doc_et_pdf/pdf_these_articles_externes/ressouni.PDF

 

http://evolutionsaintsebastien.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/saint-sebastien-et-la-communaute-homosexuelle-origines-appropriations-contestations/

http://saintsebastien.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/saint-sebastien-son-histoire-ses-differentes-representations/

http://gayartworkilove.blogspot.com/2007/11/saint-sebastian-homoerotic-patron-of.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/arrows-of-desire-how-did-st-sebastian-become-an-enduring-homoerotic-icon-779388.html