Coming up on my Pinterest mail several times recently, this powerful sculpture (with no identification beyond its mislabeling as a piece of classical sculpture), clearly of Saint Sebastian (in some public place; I’ve deleted a trash can in the background), tied to a figurative tree, mortally wounded by arrows, his body contorted in unbearable pain, writhing in the deepest agony, with no trace of homoerotic ecstasy:
(#1) Not a piece of classical sculpture, since clearly not from ancient Greek or Roman times; not a sculpture on a classical theme, since Christian martyrdom is not a theme of ancient statuary; not even a sculpture in a classical style, given its sinewy modernist roughness; classical in spirit only in its capturing the virtually nude male body in bronze
Google Images told me instantly that this remarkable figure is Saint Sebastian, a large bronze sculpture (from 2008) by Ricardo Motilla (born 1951 in San Luís Potosí, Mexico), located at the entrance to the Museo de Arte e Historia de Guanajuato (the Art and History Museum of Guanajuato), in the city of León in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
Now, some brief remarks about the city of León (a place I suspect few of my readers have ever heard of, so you’re probably wondering how it could have a serious art and history museum). Then I’ll counterpose the terrible agony of Motilla’s StS to the general run of depictions of the saint, which are heavily weighted towards the ecstatic-homoerotic; in particular, the Motilla is at the opposite end of the StS brutality scale from the many depictions by Pierre et Gilles, all of them agony-free.
The city of León. From Wikipedia:
(#2) Map showing the location of León, in the middle of thingsLeón, officially León de Los Aldama, is the most populous city and municipal seat of the municipality of León in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. In the 2020 census, INEGI reported 1,579,803 people living in the city of León and 1,721,215 in the municipality, making it the fourth-most populous city and third-most populous municipality in Mexico. The metropolitan area of León recorded a population of 2,140,094 in the 2020 state census, making it the seventh most populous metropolitan area in Mexico.
León has roughly twice the population of the city of San Francisco and nearly three times the population of the state of Wyoming. Roughly the size of Columbus OH. It’s roughly analogous in city population rank in Mexico to Houston in the US (following New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) or to Ottawa in Canada (following Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary). In any case, well set up to be a mid-rank cultural center, with a supportive arts community.
StS as a homoerotic subject. Two previous postings.
— from 5/20/11, the posting “Saint Sebastian”, on that
widespread and powerful homoerotic subject in artworks, the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
— primarily in various ecstatic presentations, but with two brutal presentations: Kisihin Shinoyama‘s 1966 photograph of Yukio Mishima as St. Sebastian, capturing “the lyricism of brutality”; and Leonardo Treviglio as filmed by Derek Jarman (1976)
— from 6/22/24, the posting “P&G feel the agony of St. Sebastian”:
That’s Pierre et Gilles, the French collaborative artists — playful, way gay, outrageous, and exceptionally fond of sailors — and their approach to
the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian as homoeros, with 7 P&G depictions of the arrow-pierced saint, none in a state that (from facial expression and bodily tone) could remotely be called agony. In particular, #7:
(#3) The saint of the city streetlight pole, rising above urban chaos to display his body in a white posing strap, while casting his gaze heavenward and crying: take me, Lord; I am coming
You hardly notice the arrows at all; they might just be pasted on, not piercing the boy saint’s skin at all.
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