Focus on Saint Sebastian (El Greco, 1576–1579) and explore the Theme.
The painting depicts Saint Sebastian, as a victim of Diocletian's suppression of Christianity during the 4th century AD. According to popular legend, Sebastian was bound to a tree and shot with arrows, but was miraculously rescued and healed, only to achieve martyrdom when he was clubbed to death shortly thereafter. Saint Sebastian is a popular saint in both the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox traditions. Pierced with arrows—a symbol associated with divine punishment in the form of pestilence since antiquity—and yet miraculously saved from near death, Saint Sebastian was often invoked to intercede on the behalf of plague victims in the 15th and 16th centuries when the painting would have first been put on display. Perhaps because of the popularity of Saint Sebastian during the second plague pandemic, or because his martyrdom offered Counter-Reformation era artists one of the few opportunities to portray the nude in religious art, there are numerous examples of the Saint painted by El Greco and his contemporaries and an established iconographical schema for his portrayal.
El Greco second plague pandemic Diocletian Saint Sebastian Counter-Reformation