Marveling in Terror: Violence, Materiality and Salvation in Titian’s 1576 Saint Sebastian

Written by Emily Vescio

Edited by Iris Bednarski

Figure 1. Titian, Saint Sebastian, oil on canvas, 1576, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

In her 1994 article “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy,” Louise Marshall argues that images of Saint Sebastian produced in Renaissance Italy wielded a particular advantage in illustrating salvation from plague.¹ These images achieve functionality through their elicitation of an emotive and somatic pious response, with Sebastian’s utility heavily contingent on the materiality of his body, the visibility of his suffering, and his propensity to imitate the passion of Christ. Furthermore, Marshall cites the specific imagery of Sebastian’s hagiography in his advantage as a plague saint, calling attention to an iconological programme which she refers to as “arrows of pestilence.”² In depicting Sebastian’s martyr, the artist acts as an interpreter, diverging from a strict framework of alleged authenticity and instead shaping his image according to their desire to illustrate salvation. Titian’s 1576 oil painting Saint Sebastian (fig. 1) illustrates the phenomenon described by Marshall in a specifically Venetian context. Saint Sebastian draws on the tradition of civic artworks depicting martyrdom as a means to achieve closeness with the sacred, and is privileged by Titian’s material and technical innovations. The sensuality of Titian’s later technique is largely illustrated by scholarship through his Poesie, produced for Philip II of Spain.³ Saint Sebastian, however, demonstrates a markedly intimate employment of Titian’s mature, sensuous technique. In Saint Sebastian, Titian’s late technique lends itself to the alluring experience of viewing violence. Evidence of making in Titian’s mature work further emphasizes the divine materiality of the saintly body, facilitating closeness with the sacred for the viewer. The result is a particularly poignant devotional image which elicits a corporeally sympathetic and emotive pious response, and thus creates an impression of salvation from plague for the (albeit unspecified) worshipper. Saint Sebastian, painted towards the end of the Cinquecento, follows a dedicated engagement by Venetian artists with narratives of martyrdom. Venice’s civic fabric was largely defined by the city’s conception of itself as exceptionally just, serene, and, most saliently, sacred. In constructing its identity as sancta città (or “the holy city”) Venice warranted a rigorous programme of devotional works.⁴ The Cinquecento, bringing bouts of plague among civic tumult, saw a particular vigor in Venice’s establishment of sacred self-mythology: Arthur Steinberg and Jonathan Wylie iterate that, during periods of unrest, “miracles and religious foundations freshened intercourse with the supernatural.”⁵ This revitalized dialogue with the supernatural warranted innovation in the production of religious artworks. In particular, it signaled a shift away from the Byzantine tradition of the saint-icon type and towards narrative, naturalistic images of sacred figures, facilitating a divergent mode of devotion entirely. Where the saint-icon prototype of centuries prior presented a static image of divine figures to be used as a passage to sacred contemplation, narrative martyrdom pieces demanded the viewer’s engagement with a given figure’s suffering, and a mode of devotion contingent on sympathy. Where the efficacy of the saint-icon type was dependent on an alleged source of sacred authority, the martyrdom image elicited a sensuous response to the content of its narrative, leaving space for the artist to act as interpreter. Rather than the saint’s image serving as an interlocutor between the viewer and the divine, the artist is placed between the sacred narrative and the viewer, presenting the image “without any claim to divine origin.”⁶ The image of the martyr is privileged by thesubject’s approximation to Christ: their unnatural, noble deaths separated them from the likes of Adam and they instead “[died] the liberating death of Christ.”⁷ As the saint gains intimacy with Christ in death, their worshiper may become closer to the sacred by resonating with an image of their divine suffering. Depictions of Saint Sebastian were thus privileged by the emotive nature of the martyrdom image. Indeed, it is only in following the Tuscan tradition of altarpieces depicting Sebastian’s martyr that the martyrdom altarpiece became commonplace to begin with.⁸

Saint Sebastian’s hagiography made him an appropriate figure for protection from illness, and his cult flourished during grueling bouts of plague from which Venice was not exempt. Images of Saint Sebastian produced during the Renaissance notably do not depict the moment of his death; Instead, they depict his persecution. According to his hagiography, Sebastian perishes only after his miraculous recovery from being shot with arrows by Roman soldiers.⁹ Sebastian’s salvation calls attention to his humanity, iterating that devotion to Christ heals all wounds. A Renaissance viewer, in identifying with Sebastian’s recovery, could conceptualize their own salvation from plague through dedication to Christ. Conversely, Sebastian’s agony is made sacred as he suffers persecution for his devotion; he transcends the terrestrial and embodies the role of a savior. The violence enacted upon him mitigates the viewer’s humanity as he “takes the sins of humanity upon himself and makes restitution for these sins with his own suffering.”¹⁰ The visual language illustrating Sebastian’s divine nature is contingent on the iconography of the moment he is persecuted: The arrows so often depicted in Sebastian’s martyr image visualize his absorption of mortal sin and, by extension, humanity’s tumult. He is placed between his worshiper and suffering, drawing pestilence (represented by his persecutors’ arrows) ontohimself so that the worshiper is saved. The challenge of persecution is transformed into that of disease, both of which are made surmountable through Sebastian’s dedication to Christ. Where Titian’s Saint Sebastian diverges from standard utilizations of the martyrdom image within the Venetian school is its informal, personal context. There is no record of the piece being publicly displayed, and it is thought to have resided in Titian’s own home until his death.¹¹ While Saint Sebastian diverges from the splendid altarpieces and monumental clerical commissions common to Cinquecento Venice, its ambiguous context evokes a complex relationship between image and viewer. Where the monumental altarpiece is to be spectated upon and evoke reverence, Saint Sebastian’s humble origins suggest that it be beheld, formulating an intimate relationship between saint and worshiper. Salvation from disease, in this case, is not achieved solely through reverence of the sacred, but through somatic resonance with the saint’s pain.

Marcia B. Hall states “Venice differed from central Italy in its attention to the sensuous. Its situation on the lagoon made its painters more sensitive to light and… color”¹² Indeed, Titian’s late paintings were particularly Venetian in their attention to the sensuous. In fluid brush strokes constituting soft flesh, sumptuous fabrics, and sublime landscapes, Titian elicited a poignant response from his viewer. His images immersed his viewer in a spectacular world of his creation, capitalizing on a particularly alluring, sensuous pleasure in spectatorship. This capability was specifically advantageous in his religious works, warranting a pious response which was nearly somatic in its intensity, facilitating closeness with the sacred. The employment of the sensuous in Saint Sebastian enforces the emotive, immersive experience of viewing violence. Una D’Elia states “Violence, horror, and terror are not antithetical to beautiful painting but rather its greatest subject.”¹³ Indeed, the Italian term maraviglia specifically described the inherent marvel in viewing terror, pain, and violence.¹⁴ Titian’s sensuous approach to violence evidences his privileged position as interpreter. His compelling visual language allows the worshiper to ascend removed sympathy for Sebastian’s suffering, presenting an image from which the viewer could conceptualize and even imitate his pain. The painting’s sensuous nature is mobilized by Titian’s appropriation of classical imagery and his treatment of tragedy through composition.

Figure 2. Titian, The Death of Saint Peter Martyr, oil on panel, 1528-1529, destroyed.

While Saint Sebastian is certainly less compositionally complex than some of Titian’s more notable religious works, such as his Peter Martyr Altarpiece (fig. 2), it exemplifies Titian’s skilled employment of invenzioni. Invenzioni refers to Titian’s propensity for artistic invention, aiding in his visualization of a deeply tragic pathos and eliciting visceral sympathy from the worshipper.¹⁵ In Saint Sebastian, Titian manipulates a visual framework based on classical sculpture, mediating between the sheer intensity of the saint’s suffering and the fortitude provided to him through his devotion to Christ. Sebastian’s pose, a classicizing iteration of contrapposto, evokes the Apollo Belvedere, a Roman statue from antiquity which was held as an anatomical ideal in Renaissance Venice (fig. 3).¹⁶ His elegant stride and dignified posture idealize his body and affirm his imitation of Christ on the crucifix. In diverging from the standard of Saint Sebastian as a sinewy, pubescent youth, Titian presents him as exceptionally fortitudinous, strengthened in his devotion and capable of shouldering the burden of mortal sin. Converse to the heroic form of the Apollo Belvedere, Sebastian’s facial expression is likelymodeled after Laocoön and His Sons (fig. 4), formulating his suffering according to a classical model of visible agony. The profound pain depicted by the Laocoön was not necessarily a common model for Italian Christian art prior to the seventeenth century.¹⁷ However, Titian’s employment of the prototype imbues Saint Sebastian with profound, visible misery, enhancing the piece’s sensuous nature. Overcome with pain, Sebastian gazes up towards heaven, a dramatic display of his Christian faith. His upward, pleading gaze reminds the viewer of Christ’s presence. He is at once heroic and suffering, secure in his devotion and overwhelmed by anguish. In employing the framework of classical sculpture, Titian presents a paradoxical image of strength and agony wherein the worshiper may empathize with the saint’s pain on a somatic level while simultaneously resting secure in the strength provided through devotion. In the context of the plague, an epidemic with grotesque bodily symptoms, the worshiper imagines that Saint Sebastian takes the corporeal pain of disease onto himself and provides salvation through his suffering.

Figure 3. Unknown Roman artist, Apollo Belvedere, white marble, 120-140 AD, Pio-Clementino Museum, Vatican City, Italy.

Figure 4. Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, Laocoön and his Sons, marble, 72 BC-68 AD, Pio-Clementino Museum, Vatican City, Italy.

Augusto Gentili asserted Saint Sebastian as a technical fluke by Titian, describing it as a “very undeveloped sketch… clearly evident in the confused, undefined, disorganized landscape background.”¹⁸ Contrary to Gentili’s reading of Saint Sebastian, one may instead observe the work’s disorienting formal language as an appeal to the sensuous experience of viewing violence. Indeed, Saint Sebastian diverges from the detailed settings and sprawling, fantastical backgrounds typical of Titian’s mature works. Titian’s apocalyptic, “disorganized” landscape collapses time, which allows the worshipper to conceptualize the narrative of Saint Sebastian’s martyr occurring in the very moment that they are viewing the image. Titian’s obfuscation of time and place thus enhances the visual experience of violence: As they are immersed in the moment of Sebastian’s persecution, the worshiper may sympathize withSebastian’s pain on a somatic level. The landscape’s otherworldly features enhance the image’s impression of bewildering anguish, elevating the singular experience of Sebastian’s suffering into a cohesive surrounding shaped by pain. Dark, swirling clouds and inconceivable natural elements confuse the eye, consuming the setting with tragedy and emphasizing the saint’s misery. The imposing darkness of the scene may also allude to the biblical allegation of the sky darkening upon Christ’s crucifixion, once again approximating the martyr narrative to Christ’s death.

The captivating nature of Titian’s late religious works is further privileged by visual evidence of making, what may be colloquially referred to as the “stuff of painting.” In Saint Sebastian, Titian’s propensity to leave his hand unobscured lends materiality to the saint’s body, further engaging the viewer with his suffering and simulating his divine presence in the absence of a canonical relic. Cinquecento Venice saw a break from the Renaissance standard of illusionism, which dictated that the artist’s hand (and by extension, the physicality of the painting) was to be obfuscated, facilitating the illusion of a three-dimensional subject, and thus presenting an image independent from the process of making.¹⁹ The development of easel painting around 1500 iterated that the “artifice of painting”²⁰ was not to be relegated to the annals of the viewer’s consciousness, but was to be the subject in itself. The distinctly Venetian practice of colore iterated that painting was to be a practice without circumscription, diametrically opposed to the Florentine disegno, which was dependent on a detailed underpinning of highly precise drawing.²¹ Titian’s late works, laden with bold brushstrokes, textured canvas, and layers of impasto, exemplified both the Cinquecento shift towards painting as artifice, and a specifically Venetian penchant for colore.²² In praising the material innovation of Titian’s late work, Giorgio Vasari stated “Titian’s pictures are often repainted, gone over and retouched repeatedly, so that the work involved is evident.”²³ Saint Sebastian illustrates Titian’s prowess in constructing the saintly body through evidence of making. Saint Sebastian was originally conceived at half length and later extended by attaching additional canvas to the initial support. The resulting piece stands at slightly larger than life size. X-Rays (fig. 5) reveal Sebastian’s body modeled in swaths of lead white, a standard practice of Titian’s late style.²⁴ This stark and visually evident initial layer calls attention to the body as a construction by the artist. In presenting it as painterly artifice, Titian engages the divine materiality of the saintly body, visualizing Saint Sebastian’s position as a mediator between the terrestrial and the sacred, and thus his capability to draw human suffering onto himself. Sebastian’s flesh is finished with delicate layers of ochre glaze, and subsequently pierced with arrows. Titian’s employment of colore to indicate Sebastian’s blood infuses the piece with narrative temporality: The viewer can imagine Sebastian’s lead white flesh being pierced just as Titian adorns him with layers of resplendent red glaze.

Figure 5. X-Ray of Titian’s Saint Sebastian, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Titian’s uniquely Venetian approach, specifically its contingency on the materiality of colore, shapes the experience of viewership, further evidencing the relationship between saint and worshiper as a product of the artist’s innovation. Vittorio Colonna complicates the Renaissance opposition between disegno and colore, iterating that while images employing the calculated framework of disegno warrant an intellectual experience of viewership, images produced using colore facilitate a somatic, “embodied” experience of viewing.²⁵ From the employment of colore, a reciprocal relationship between material and subject emerges: The artwork’s material, made evident by the artist’s improvisational application of color, lends dimension to the divine body, and, conversely, the body becomes the “material of art.”²⁶ Saint Sebastian engages such a polemic of viewership as Titian’s adept evocation of materiality adds a visceral, corporeal dimension to the narrative image of the saint’s martyr.

In “Manipulating the Sacred,” Louise Marshall establishes a framework through which one may analyze images of Saint Sebastian in Renaissance Italy. She iterates that the polemic of viewership is complicated by specific formal and iconological choices by the artist, resulting in a poignant site of devotion wherein the worshiper may gain an impression of salvation. Titian’s 1576 Saint Sebastian affirms the potential of Saint Sebastian’s martyr image as asserted by Marshall. The informal context of the piece warrants a markedly intimate mode of viewership, strengthening the impression of salvation through an emotional relationship between saint and worshiper. Titian’s mature, sensuous technique employs an intricate formal and compositional formula which highlights both the saint-martyr’s fortitude through Christ as well as his immense suffering. Finally, evidence of materiality and making in Saint Sebastian encourages an experience of embodied viewing, wherein the worshiper’s somatic sympathy for the saint facilitates a strengthened, contemplative devotional experience. Each of these factors facilitate closeness with Saint Sebastian, cementing the impression of salvation from disease. By evidencing his artistic presence, Titian transforms the role of the artist. To Titian, producing a devotional work is not a purely mechanical undertaking; rather, images such as Saint Sebastian warrant that the artist acts as an interpreter (and thus intercessor) between the terrestrial and the sacred.

Endnotes

1.  Louise Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 3 (Autumn 1994) 489.

2. Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred,” 495.

3. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, “Late Titian and the Sensuality of Painting,” in Late Titian and the Sensuality of Painting (Venice: Marsilo Editori, 2008) 15.

4. Patricia Fortini-Brown, “A Pious People,” in Art and Life in Renaissance Venice (New York: Abrams Books, 1997) 91. 

5. Arthur Steinberg and Jonathan Wylie, “Counterfeiting Nature: Artistic Innovation and Cultural Crisis in Renaissance Venice,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no.1 (January 1990) 57.

6. Marcia B. Hall, “Titian: His Trip to Rome and After,” in The Sacred Image in the Age of Art: Titian, Tintoretto, Barocci, El Greco, Caravaggio (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011) 170.

7. Patricia Meilman, “The Development of Martyrdom Altarpieces,” in Titian’s “Saint Peter Martyr Altarpiece” and the Development of Altar Painting in Renaissance Venice (New York: Columbia University, 1989) 203.

8. Meilman, “Martyrdom Altarpieces,” 210. 

9. Jacobus Voragine, “The Life of Sebastian,” in The Golden Legend Volume II trans. William Caxton (1483).

10. Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred,” 496. 

11. Una Roman D’elia, “A Christian Laocoön,” in The Poetics of Titian’s Religious Paintings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 43. 

12. Hall, “Titian,” 143.

13. Una Roman D’elia, “The Pleasures of Violent Art,” in The Poetics of Titian’s Religious Paintings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 69. 

14. D’elia, “Violent Art,” 69. 

15. Patricia Meilman, “Titian’s Achievement,” in Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 122. 

16. D’Elia, “Laocoön,” 43.

17.  D’Elia, “Laocoön,” 44. 

18. Irina Artemieva, “3.19 Saint Sebastian,” in Late Titian and the Sensuality of Painting (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2008) 304.

19. Jodi Cranston, “Introduction,” in The Muddied Mirror: Materiality and Figuration in Titian’s Later Paintings (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010) 1. 

20. Cranstion, “Introduction,” 2. 

21. Thomas Puttfarken, “The Final Tragedies and Titian’s ‘Late Style,’” in Titian and Tragic Painting: Aristotle’s Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist (New Haven: Yale University Press) 187. 

22. A technique in which oil paint is applied to the support in thick, visible layers.

23. Cranston, “Introduction,” 2.

24. Artemieva, “Saint Sebastian,” 306. 

25. Jodi Cranston, “Violence and Retrospection,” in The Muddied Mirror: Materiality and Figuration in Titian’s Later Paintings (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010) 86.

26.  Cranston, “Violence,” 86.

Bibliography

Cranston, Jodi. The Muddied Mirror. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2010. 

D’Elia, Una Roman. The Poetics of Titian’s Religious Paintings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 

Ferino-Padgen, Sylvia and Giovanna Nepi Scire. Late Titian and the Sensuality of Painting. Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2008. 

Fortini-Brown, Patricia. “A Pious People.” In Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, 91-112. New York: Abrams Books, 1997. 

Hall, Marcia B. “Titian: His Trip to Rome and After.” In The Sacred Image in the Age of Art: Titian, Tintoretto, Barocci, El Greco, Caravaggio, 145-171. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011. 

Marshall, Louise. “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 3 (Autumn 1994) 485-532. 

Meilman, Patricia. Titian’s “Saint Peter Martyr Altarpiece” and the Development of Altar Painting in Renaissance Venice. New York: Columbia University, 1989. 

Meilman, Patricia. Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

Puttfarken, Thomas. Titian and Tragic Painting. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005. 

Steinberg, Arthur and Jonathan Wylie. “Counterfeiting Nature: Artistic Innovation and Cultural Crisis in Renaissance Venice.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 1 (Jan. 1990) 54-88. 

Voragine, Jacobus. “The Life of Saint Sebastian.” In The Golden Legend Volume II. Translated by William Caxton. 1483.