Saint Sebastian

In his search for the ideal of male beauty, Italian painter Guido Reni (1575-1642) revisited the figure of Saint Sebastian several times. Sebastian (c. 255-c. 288) was a third-century Roman soldier condemned to death by Emperor Diocletian for aiding the Christians. He was tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows. Although his arrow wounds were not fatal, he was later clubbed to death. Reni gives the viewer very few narrative details, with just a single arrow to identify Saint Sebastian, its shaft directing attention to the group of soldiers leaving the scene. Reni reimagines the Saint, transforming a middle-aged soldier into a naked youth, stripped bare save for a loin cloth and idealised in the guise of a classical statue. With a twisted cloth loosely draped around the hips, Reni has made little concession to contemporary ideas of modesty. Recent X-rays revealed that originally Reni had originally sketched the cloth higher around the waist, but let it slip when painting the final version. Presented here bathed in a cold moonlight, the starkly-lit body leaps out from the dark background, a visual contrast known in Italian as chiaroscuro. The figure’s foreshortened leg juts forwards, disappearing at the knee, while both arms are also lost in shadow. This dramatic truncation of the torso makes direct reference to those found in antique sculpture, which were being rediscovered in Italy before and during the time this painting was made.  

Reni lived and worked in Bologna and Rome in Italy, with a busy studio that produced many versions of his sought-after works. Some of his early compositions show the influence of his contemporary, Caravaggio (1571-1610). Reni was himself hugely influential and a leading painter in the Bolognese school. This painting is believed to be one of two autograph replicas of an original in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid of 1617-18, the other being in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Reni’s Saint Sebastian was one of the most celebrated works in the Dulwich collection in the nineteenth century. Saint Sebastian continues to be considered an icon among the LGBTQI+ community.