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Andrea Mantegna, 'St Sebastian', 1456-9


My eye is firstly drawn to the violence of the scene. Mantegna has juxtaposed Saint Sebastian's blemish-free and perfect, white skin with streaks of blood trickling from his many wounds. This is foregrounded by the arrow running through his face, straight through his third eye. There are so many arrows that they are difficult to follow them through the body, but the one through the head is deliberately clear. The viewer's eye is drawn towards this because of upwards, agonised gaze of Saint Sebastian himself, looking heavenwards to God. Interestingly, the entire painting has a surprising softness, both in brushwork and colour, considering it is such a violent subject matter. It is an image full of beautiful detail and precision rather than emotion and yet it has agony at its very centre.

Saint Sebastian's emotions are clearly depicted on his face, and the brown hair that acts as a kind of second halo to frame his face makes his features stand out even more. The emotions suggest confusion as well as pain. He is clearly very much alive, the whites of his eyes reflecting the white of the composition as a whole, but also referencing pain, and perhaps even fear. Furthermore, the twisted angles of his body and the clear definition of his ribs and diaphragm on his torso, heighten the agony of his wounds, even making the viewer sympathise with his position. His hands seem to be bound uncomfortably behind his back, yet his body is twisted, with his knees knocking together in a tense pose. There is no way for him to try and dull the pain, he must just endure it, exposed literally and metaphorically to this unavoidable consequence. Yet there is elegance to his pose. The contrapposto suggests Mantegna's interest in classical sculpture but there is also a sinuous Gothic feel to the 'S' shaped curve of his body and, like many depictions of Saint Sebastian, there is a sensual quality to his depiction of the nude.

Mantegna has included a huge amount of detail in his fifteenth century painting. Judging by his other works too, he clearly had an interest in architectural detailing, and the inclusion of an elaborate marble column and ruined Roman arch cements this. But there are also sculptural remnants scattered at the saint's feet: perhaps symbolic of the paganism defeated. The use of the tiled floor also shows the artist's skill and Renaissance interest in perspective. The gravel path in the background of the painting creates the sense of recession and furthers the three-dimensional nature of the piece. But you can also see figures on the road, and a peaceful pastoral landscape, ordinary life continuing, apparently oblivious of the saint's martyrdom. The colour of the painting as a whole is mostly white and blue, with occasional gold, such as the Byzantine-style halo above Sebastian's head. It is a serene palette, suggesting the purity of the saint's sacrifice. The sky fills nearly half of the pictorial space and Mantegna has even included a figure in the top left cloud referencing a path to Christian redemption, even in the darkest of times. 

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