TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 15 – ST SEBASTIAN

Title: St Sebastian
Artist: Michel Henricot
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 30 x 30 cm
Date: 2006
Location: Private Collection.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 15 – ST SEBASTIAN

Saint Sebastian (died c. 288) was a Christian saint and martyr, who is said to have been killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. Diocletian commanded Sebastian be led to the field and there to be bound to a stake to be shot at as punishment for his proselytizing, "And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin," leaving him there for dead. Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. Irene of Rome, the widow of martyred Christian Castulus, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health. Having regained his strength, he harangued Diocletian as he passed by, and the emperor then had him beaten to death. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Churches.

This portrait of St Sebastian is unique in that it has moved away from the standard portrait of a young, beautiful, white, shirtless, and baby-faced icon. In Henricot’s work it is the suffering that is foremost, the torso pierced by long arrows that are graphically embedded in flesh. It is not another portrait of a beautiful Saint to admire, but a reminder of the physical suffering that Sebastian endured in order to spread the word of Christ among a hostile environment; it is a stark portrayal of the agony that will be meted out to those who oppose the status quo, to those who will stand up in the face of injustice and find the courage to “harangue the emperor”. Henricot’s portrait reminds us that emulating the life of Christ is not all accolades and honors, but true, painful suffering.

Michel Henricot (1940) is one of the most prominent contemporary French visionary painters. He had his first individual show in 1961, in Galerie Marignan, Paris, and has since had numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, e.g., Germany, Italy, and the United States. Among his influences, Henricot is fascinated with the work of Gustave Moreau, Max Klinger, Max Ernst, Egyptian art, and Renaissance Italian painting. More of his work can be seen at the JKK Fine Arts website: http://www.jkkfinearts.com/Henricot/

St Mark Enthroned with Saints

Title: St Mark Enthroned with Saints

Artist: Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: 230 x 149 cm

Date: 1510

Location: Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.

All Saints' Day (officially the Solemnity of All Saints), often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated on 1 November in Western Christianity in honor of all the saints, known and unknown. In terms of Western Christian theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven.

This altarpiece is a brilliantly colored, luminous work. One of Titian's youthful works, it was probably created either during or shortly after the horrific outbreak of the plague in 1510 for the church of Santo Spirito in Isola to celebrate the end of the plague. Here the four saints who are traditionally invoked for protection from the plague - Saints Cosmas and Damian to the left, Saints Roch and Sebastian to the right - are placed in pairs on each side of where saint Mark, patron saint of Venice, is seated.

A new stylistic direction is evident in the way Titian paints the four standing saints. They have a classical nobility of form and a hieratic air which points to an influence of Giovanni Bellini. However, the saints on the left are given a very realistic sense of individuality, a strong contrast with the almost Giorgionesque reserve of the figures to the right.

An unusual feature is the cloud that casts its shadow over the face of St Mark. This strengthens his identity as an Evangelist, who put the sermons of St. Peter onto paper, creating the Gospel of Mark. It reinforces that it is not he, Mark, who is great, but rather the Word of the Lord.

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488 – August 1572) better known as Titian, was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was probably a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and in his early work he came under the spell of Giorgione, with whom he had a close relationship. In 1508 he assisted him with the external fresco decoration of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Venice, and after Giorgione's early death in 1510 it fell to Titian to complete a number of his unfinished paintings. His free and expressive brushwork revolutionized the oil technique: Vasari wrote that his late works 'are executed with bold, sweeping strokes... The method he used is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, for it makes pictures appear alive.’