San Sebastiano, the first gay icon of history

Text published on the blog Santos Queer on January 20, 2013, freely translated by Maria Stella Iaria

San Sebastiano was indicated as the first gay icon of the story and the patron saint of queer people. His celebration is January 20. Sebastiano was an ancient Christian martyr assassinated in the year 288 by order of the Roman emperor Diocletian. He was the subject of countless works of art that showed how the troops lashed out arrows against him. Little is known about his love life, therefore his ancient popularity among gay men is based, mainly, on how he was painted in ancient times.
Starting from the Renaissance, most of the time Sebastiano was painted as a young man almost naked in a mixture of pleasure and pain. The homoeroticism of these paintings is obvious.

"Tribute to San Sabastiano" by the artist Tony De Carlo

Since other blogs commented on the teacher works that show San Sebastiano through the history of art, here I will just prRess some and to postpone the readers and readers to the best art collection on San Sebastiano: the homoerotic patron of gay men of the blog "Arte que love"..

San Sebastiano is the favorite theme of the contemporary gay artist Tony De Carlo, whose work can be seen at the top of this post. This artist started his series on San Sebastiano in the decade of 1980 as a response to the crisis of AIDS. Since then the collection has risen to more than 40 representations.
"I chose it because it was known as the patron saint and protector against the plague that spread in Europe," said De Carlo in an interview for the blog Jesus in Love (that is, Jesus in love). "It happened only in 2001, when I entered a shop of Catholic-Roman religious articles in New Mexico (USA), I took a Poor Statue of San Sebastiano and I saw a label in the lower part that said" patron siexuals ""

"San Sebastiano" by the artist Rick Herold

Sebastiano actually survived the attack of the arrows and was curated by Santa Irene of Rome until he healed, but only to be "martyred twice", since after he was executed by the emperor Diocletian.

Often Sebastiano also appears in the world of gay literature. For example, the playwright Tennessee Williams, in the work "suddenly last summer", called his gay character Martyrized Sebastiano and Oscar Wilde used the name Sebastiano as his pseudonym after being freed from prison.

The picture that appears to the side was painted by the Californian gay artist Rick Herold, which places San Sebastiano against a colorful backdrop with cartoons, like a reminiscence of the gay artist and activist Keith Haring. "During my years as a painter I have always been interested in the idea that the spirit and meat are one. I started from the influence of tantric art and then I used my Catholic-Roman formation, "says Herold for the blog Jesus in Love (Jesus in love). Herold paints his paintings with enamel on the backhand of transparent plexiglas.

"San Sebastian and Matt Shepard side by side" by the painter Jr Leveroni

The work "San Sebastián y Matt Shepard Yuxtapuestos" by the artist Jr Leveroni compares Sebastiano's martyrdom with the death of a contemporary gay martyr, Matthew Shepard (1976-1998). Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming when he was brutally beaten and abandoned to his fate by the two men who later said they were "temporarily crazy" for their "gay terror". Shepard's assassination led to the expansion of the law against hatred crimes in the United States of North America to judge violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Leveroni is an emerging visual artist who lives in the south of the State of Florida, in the United States of North America. His work is based on cubist -style paintings, which portray homosexual martyrs that suffer in a soft way, with just a trace of blood. You can see a variety of paintings with male nudes and religious paintings on the Leveroni web page.

Today an important biographical film for many gay men is "Sebastiane", directed by the British independent director Derek Jarman. The 1976 Latin film has triggered controversy for its homoeroticism and is considered a milestone of LGBT cinema.

Original text: San Sebastián: el primer ícono gay de la Historia