Welcome back! Today we're continuing with my Classical Art Recreation series, with my reinterpretation of Saint Sebastian, by Andrea Mantegna.
Now, Saint Sebastian, the person, was an early Christian saint and martyr who was killed during the Roman Emperor Diocletian's purge of Christians. While he reportedly evangelized throughout the Roman Empire and was an influential voice for early Christianity, he's most remembered for the first attempt Diocletian made to martyr him. After beign discovered by Diocletian, Sebastian was strung up and shot with so many arrows that he looked like a pin-cushion by the end of the ordeal. His body was left ther until a widow, known as Irene of Rome (also a venerated saint of the Catholic Church), came to retrieve his body and discovered he was still alive. She nursed him back to health, and upon his recovery he gave a speech in Rome speaking against Diocletian and his persecution of Christians. The emperor was at first astonished that Sebasitan was still alive, but he ended up having Sebastian clubbed to death. Afterwards, his body was dumped in the sewers.
Today, Saint Sebastian is one of the most painted Catholic Saints. He's often portrayed a handsome youth, pierced with arrows, and often in homoerotic or sensual clothing and positions.
While he has been painted over and over again, the first painting of Saint Sebastian that I was introduced to was by the Italian painter Andrea Mantegna. Mantegna lived from 1431 to 1506 and produced numerous works of art during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his interpretations of Saint Sebastian and his piece The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ. As an artist, his work displayed a fundamentally sculptural element to the human figure with exaggerated physics with an almost stone-like quality. Aside from his paintings, Mantegna also ran an artistic printing shop in Venice that was one of the first print shops of the time.
While Mantegna painted Saint Sebastian numerous times over his year, my favourite painting is first of his attempts at the subject matter. Mantegna began it in 1456 and finished the piece in 1459. Today, the painting is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Musem in Vienna, Austria.
And here is my interpretation of the painting:
Of all my recreations, this one gave me the most grief, but also turned out to be one of my favourites.
Aaron, who played David in a previous image, also agreed to let me tie him up and stick him with arrows for this image... well, not literally. We did tie up his hands and feet (which didn't make the cut, as you can see) and wrapped him up in a ripped bed sheet. For the arrows, I used sticks that I'd found from Value Village. They were part of some house decoration, I can't remember what it was, but I ripped it apart and glued feathers onto the ends to give them an arrow feel. To stick them to his body, we used eyelash glue, and the strung up the ends to a light arm that had over his head. And it worked really well. Then, I dripped some fake blood, and Sebastian was complete. Again, Aaron did a really great job with this. He's a hugely successful model now based out of Toronto, but when he came to pose for me, he'd never done much modelling before and was pretty nervous, but his shots turned out exceptional, and ended up being some of my favourites.
The main problem I had with this recreation was the background. I searched all over for a similar background and took hundreds of varying photos, but nothing worked... and I got really frustrated. I ended up using a shot from a local estate called Parkwood. It's a famous landmark in my city and had been featured in numerous films and TV shows including X-Men, Hemlock Grove, and Fever Pitch, to name a few.
And while it didn't turn out really identical to the original, I was really happy with the finished product. I think the greenery in the background took to the oil paint treatment really well, and it looks like it could be a painting. The paintings of Saint Sebastian have been some of my favourite works of art for years, and that might be one reason why this is one of my favourites. Can't go wrong with Saint Sebastian!
Next, I'll be talking about another painting of a saint, Saint Serapion.
And of course, if you're interested in seeing other images from this series, you can find them all here.
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And you can check out my debut fantasy novel, The Children of Gods and Monsters, in the Amazon store, here.
Also check out the prelude to The Children of Gods and Monsters, also on Amazon, here.
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