Box with flamingoes, Egypt, ca. 3300-3500 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
Walker Evans, Street Arrow, Polaroid 1973-4, © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Week 19 - Episode 105 - Walker Evan's Arrow
Yanone, © IFICAH, http://ificah-blog.com/yanone/
Week 19 - Episode 104 - Yanone
Week 19 - Episode 102 - Dead? 'Tis But a Scratch
Podcast Transcript
This is week 19, and all week we’ll be focusing on arrows.
In today’s episode I’m looking at a Saint famous for arrows.
Saint Sebastian is usually depicted tied to a tree or column and pierced by arrows.
And he was an artist’s favourite, because he was the perfect excuse to depict the (almost) naked nude body.
I have seen hundreds of Saints Sebastians and I’m sure there are thousands more. And I always assumed those arrows killed him.
But guess what.
They didn’t.
He survived the ordeal, and was clubbed to death later on, whilst undiplomatically championing the christian cause to Emperor Diocletian.
After his death his body was thrown in the cloaca maxima (the Roman sewer system), but it must come as no surprise that we prefer him depicted not covered in excrement, but attacked by arrows.
And although styles change the formula remains the same over the centuries.
Stunning male body, as naked as the artist can get away with.
Arrows.
And a gaze not of fury or pain, but of surrender.
So what role do the arrows play in all this?
They’re a great device to direct our eye through an image, and to point towards what’s most important.
And this is exactly what artists use them for.
Of course, they can be a metaphor for penetration, for sex.
They can stand for pain and torture.
But at a very basic level, they are the ‘pointers’ which, as we have seen in yesterday’s episode, took so look to arrive in books and graphics.
Compare some versions (there are thousands) of our saint and look at the effect of the arrows. Lots of arrows: the eye is immediately drawn to the body of the saint.
Only a couple? We easily get distracted by other things in the painting, like the scenery.
Or, as in Messina’s Sebastian in Dresden, towards his oddly modern looking underpants. Or maybe that’s just me.
Many modern artists have returned to the theme - and Louise Bourgeois takes it to a whole new level.
Sebastian has become Sebastienne. The arrows are now pointers - AND arrows, prodding the female body, pushing it around. Leaving it no room whatsoever. The female body is constantly under fire - and Bourgeois knows and shows this.
So there we have it. Arrows as weapons - and as a pictorial device.
What I’m going to be thinking about after looking at so many Saint Sebastians is this.
If I were to create a contemporary Saint Sebastian, what would my arrows look like?
And what would they do?
How relevant is Sebastian to a 21st century audience, and in what ways could you make that relevance visible?
Sebastian died for his faith. How would you depict someone who died for their faith, or for what they believe in? Would you include the weapons used to kill or torture them? Or focus on their character or cause?
Enough to ponder - all thanks to a Saint and the simple arrow.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more on arrows, until then, have a lovely day!