This piece is heavily inspired by the paintings of Saint Sebastian, by painters like Guido Reni. But did you know how Saint Sebastian ended up being a gay icon? 🫵🏻
San Sebastian was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity. Historians believe he may have had a romantic relationship with the emperor Dioclesiano, who asked him to renounce his faith, but he didn't and he was sentenced to death, tied to a tree and shot with arrows.
Surprisingly, he didn't die because of the arrows, he met the emperor again and then stoned and thrown into a mass grave in Rome. The artists usually chooses the arrows because is rather more aesthetic ✨ than his tragic death, though you can find some painters who actually portrait his death.
At first he was represented as an old man, but in the renaissance the artists chose to reinvent the image of this Saint, to a young handsome man, showing almost pleasure at his destiny, romanticing the pain. A lot of famous paintings of the Saint were produced by artists who we believe were gay ( Boticelli, Caravaggio, Pontormo, Reni, Bronzino, Donatello, Il Sodoma...) so it's very reasonable why they keep representing the Saint, as a young beautiful men, with a fit body and mostly nude.
Why would artists do this ? Well in that time church was the main income from the majority of the artist community , so they choose the Saint as a way to express different topics, to have a bit of creativity freedom.This became a problem, the beauty of the saint woke up passions between the men and women who attended the church, to the point they hide some paintings, and the painter Pacheco, the father in law of Velázquez, suggest to level down the sensuality and beauty of the representations, although it didn't.
Saint Sebastian was also well love in the medieval times when the plague epidemic reach Europe, they use pictures of the Saint to protect their homes. This protective side became popular when the aids became a problem, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, Saint Sebastian popularity became even higher.
The symbolic aspect regarding homosexuality transcends through time, writers like Lorca talked about the beauty of the Saint or Oscar Wilde who used Sebastian as a pseudonym, if you search you can find many references. And till this day the artist keeps using his image as a symbol, becoming one of the more represented Figures of history.
So now you can understand why this is a perfect marriage with Will Graham 🙂↕️ 💖
English is not my first language so excuse me I have any errors, I try my best 🌞☝🏻
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