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     For nearly two millennia imagery of St. Sebastian has been prominent in the Western world. The following investigation is an examination of the iconography of this early Christian martyr and how its meaning and usage has shifted as it has moved out of its original Christian context.
 

     St. Sebastian was one of the early Christian martyrs that were killed in connection with the Roman persecution of the Christians in the third century. He is said to have died in 288. Sebastian was born in Gaul, modern France. He received Christian teachings in Milan and was later made an officer in the emperor’s guard in Rome.[1] He was a “closeted” Christian as far as the Roman court was concerned.

     During this time the Roman emperor Diocletian issued an edict, commanding the destruction of Christian churches. Shortly thereafter another law was passed making Christians incapable of holding any place of trust, profit, dignity, or of receiving any protection from the courts of the empire. We can easily imagine the difficulties this caused for Sebastian. After these laws were passed a man who pretended to be a Christian named Torquatus betrayed Sebastian and informed the Roman general Fabian of his Christianity. Due to the high rank of Sebastian he couldn’t be put to death without the direct command of the emperor.[2]

     The emperor Diocletian sent for Sebastian. He declared Sebastian as an enemy of the gods, the empire, and of himself. Sebastian denied all of this, saying that his religion was of good and didn’t influence him to do any harm to the empire. He attempted to prove this by the fact that he prayed for the health and well being of Diocletian. Some sources elaborate on this Sebastian went on to say, “I think to pray and demand help of the idols of stone is a great folly.”[3] This infuriated the emperor. He ordered Sebastian to be stripped, tied to a tree and shot with arrows. This was done and he was shot until “he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks.”[4] Some Christians that came to care for and bury Sebastian’s body found him showing signs of life. They nursed him back to health.

     When he could walk again he confronted the emperor Diocletian on his way to the temple. Sebastian reproved the emperor for his various cruelties and for his unreasonable hatred of the Christians. Diocletian had him clubbed to death and thrown into the sewer. Because of this Sebastian is sometimes referred to as the martyr that was martyred twice. It is said that a Christian woman retrieved his body from the sewer and buried it in the catacombs.[5] I can only imagine how this sort of story would have served as a great source of inspiration for the early Christians who underwent similar persecutions. This is the core of Sebastian’s story.

     Now let us turn to the history of his depiction in the visual arts. The earliest image that I’m able to find at this point is dated from 682. It is a mosaic found in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (Rome, Italy). In this mosaic we find a very different depiction of Sebastian than we are familiar with. Sebastian is shown fully robed with grey hair and beard. There is no sign of an arrow. He appears like an elder and respectable Roman nobleman. A couple hundred years later, in the 9^th century, we find a fresco at Chiesa di San Giorgio al Velabro, also in Rome. In this fresco Sebastian is depicted as a Roman soldier. This is natural as he served in the emperor’s guard and was seen as a patron saint of soldiers.

     After the 12^th century we see a major shift in the standard depiction of Sebastian. We find the introduction of archers and Sebastian in the state that we are accustomed to seeing him – a youth stripped, bound, and shot with arrows. This is very interesting considering that at this time the only semi-nude male form we find is that of Christ.[6] What provoked this shift?

      Major hints can be found in the medieval bestseller, The Golden Legend, which contained the stories of various saints and martyrs. This text helped to popularize Sebastian. In this there is telling of a king who fought off the plague in this town by erecting a shrine for St. Sebastian.[7] Through this he was popularly seen as a saint who protected against the mysterious and deadly plague. We see a shift of Sebastian’s depiction from a mature man to a fresh, healthy youth. In this way he symbolized the health and life that followers of the saint would petition for. In a similar way the scenario of his martyrdom became a symbol. Just as he was helplessly confronted by heartless archers, the victims of the plague found themselves confronted by a cruel and unknown killer.

     In the early 1600’s there was another major shift in the iconography of Sebastian. During this time there was a development of an erotic depiction of the martyr. This is a very unexpected shift for a Catholic saint. Upon a little investigation this is a very natural development for a tradition that places so much importance on the torture and murder of their savior. Considering this the collision of ecstasy and agony is quite natural.

     Most famous for his role in shifting the iconography of Sebastion is Guido Reni. He painted several St. Sebastion images. All of them have a similar quality of softening and romanticizing the meme. The St. Sebastian of 1615 shows a fit youth, bound with hands above his head. Arrows pierce his chest, but only at its edges, as if to not blemish the idealized chest reminiscent of a romance novel cover. This image will come into play again soon. Take note of it.

     In Carlo Saraceni’s Saint Sebastian of 1610-1616 we find very thinly veiled eroticism. Sebastian is depicted as a fresh youth not bound, but reclining on red drapery. His head is tilted back in a fashion that brings up memories of Bernini’s St. Theresa. A single arrow pierces his lower abdomen. He is shown holding it gently. The phallic reference is hard to avoid. He looks like he his in more pleasure than pain. In the 18^th century the Marquis de Sade took this notion to its natural end, influencing much to come.

     Now taking a large step into the 20th century I’d like to touch upon Yukio Mishima. He was a Japanese author, poet and playwright. He was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century, whose avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change.

     In his book Confessions of a Mask, which is considered to be a thinly veiled autobiography, he describes how he had his first ejaculation after contemplating Remi’s St. Sebastian.

“A remarkably handsome youth was bound naked to the trunk of a tree. His hands crossed were raised high, and the thongs binding his wrists were tied to the tree… Were it not for the arrows with their shafts deeply sunk into his left armpit and right side, he would seem more like a Roman athelete resting from fatigue… The arrows have eaten into the tense, fragrant, youthful flesh, and are about to consume his body from within with flames of supreme agony and ecstacy.”[8]

Mishima goes on in Confessions to describe his ejaculation. “Fortunately, a reflex motion of my hand to protect the picture had saved the book from being soiled.” Throughout his life Sebastian played a large role. The theme of the violent or painful death of a handsome youth played a role in many of his novels.

     This sadomasochist approach to Sebastian comes out strongly in Robert Mapplethorpe’s Polaroid photo entitled “St. Sebastian” from 1970-75. In this image the troupes that draw reference are bodily posture and bondage. There are no arrows or hints of bodily injury. Rather the male figure is bound up in leather cuffs and rope. He is blind folded. In many ways there isn’t much that distinguishes this from S&M pornography, yet the figure of Sebastian comes through clearly. Sebastian is now totally outside of the original context of Christianity. The concerns of “supreme agony and ecstasy,” as Mishima put it, are of vital concern. Another community with different concerns has adopted the Christian saint. The archetype of martyr and saint lives on.

     Other genres have also adopted Sebastian. A great example of this is found in the horror movie Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma in 1976. St. Sebastian is used as a theme throughout. Most prominently is near the beginning of the film and then at the end. First Carrie is most in a closet to repent for getting her period. After screaming and fighting against it and being locked in she lights a candle on a small Saint Sebastian alter. Perhaps Carrie herself is a St. Sebastian figure who fights back, rather than accepting persecution. Then at the end of the film after the disastrous prom, Carrie returns home and uses her telekinesis to make her crazy Christian mom into a St. Sebastian figure.[9]

     On the theme of gore, there is the example of the contemporary Taiwanese artist Su Hui-Yu in his piece entitled 
“St. Sebastian”
 from 2008. In this piece he photographs himself on a plain white background dressed in a small white cloth covering his pelvic region. He stands on a small metallic pedestal in front of a metallic pole. He assumes a Sebastian-like pose with hands behind, as if bound. On his body he has strapped many small boxes connected to cables. These boxes are set to explode with fake blood when the camera shutter opens. The act is very performative and feels very modern with its use of technology, yet the timeless meme of Sebastian is clear.

     The most contemporary work I’ve selected in this collection is an illustration by Chiara Bautista from 2009. This one is interestingly unique in that it presents the Sebastian meme with a female form. It’s interesting to note that the composition is almost exactly that of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi
’s St. Sebastian of 1525. Bautista is clearly making a reference to art history and the legacy of St. Sebastian. She does so in a surreal way. There are small teddy bear cherubs. One is throwing mp3 files from a computer folder icon, as if showering with consoling music. The other cherub has a few arrows in one hand and is gently touching a band-aide and the figure’s leg. When you look closely in this illustration there are many small interesting details. One is that she has a set of ear buds plugged into her heart. In her expression she is expressing the standard suffering saint expression. What does this martyr quality mean in this very contemporary context? A hint is given on the bottom of the illustration with the text, “To hear your heartbeat, that’s all I wanted kiddo.” We get a hint that the figure’s agony (and perhaps ecstasy) is brought about due to the double-edged sword of the pursuit of love.

     This collision of agony and ecstasy seems to be the solid thread throughout Sebastian’s long history of iconography. Sebastian was one of the first saints of the Christian church. As such his legacy is almost as long as that of Christianity itself. He has become an enduring heroic archetype throughout various aspects of modern life – the erotic, the grotesque, the sadistic, the spiritual, the religious, the historical, and the popular. He seems to be an enduring figure that will not be going anywhere any time soon.

Bibliography

Foxe, John. Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Chicago: Moody Press, 1954.

De Voragine, Jacobus. The Golden Legend : Readings on the Saints. Trans.

     William Granger Ryan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1995.

"Arrows of Desire: How Did St Sebastian Become an Enduring, Homo-erotic

     Icon?" The Independent. 10 Feb. 2008. <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-  

     entertainment/art/features/arrows-of-desire-how-did-st-sebastian-become-an

     enduring-homoerotic-icon-779388.html>.

Scott-Stokes, Henry. The life and death of Yukio Mishima. New York: Farrar,   

     Straus, and Giroux, 1974. pg 78

Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976), film.