St. Sebastian (Botticelli)

St. Sebastian
St. Sebastian
Artist	Sandro Botticelli
Year	1474
Medium	Tempera on panel
Dimensions	195 cm × 75 cm (77 in × 30 in)
Location	Staatliche Museen, Berlin

St. Sebastian is a painting of the eponymous Christian saint by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed in 1474 for the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Florence. It is housed in the Staatliche Museen of Berlin.

Criticism and influence[]

Kenneth Clark considered this picture remarkable for its closeness to the spirit of harmonious repose found in classical sculpture:

There are several reasons why for fifty years or more Donatello's David had no successors... Another is the inherent restlessness of the Florentine temperament. Apollo is static. His gestures are dignified and calm. But the Florentines loved movement, the more violent the better. The two great masters of the nude in the late quattrocento, Pollaiuolo and Botticelli, are concerned with embodiments of energy or ecstatic motion, with a wrestling Hercules or a flying angel, and only once, in Botticelli's St. Sebastian, achieve a satisfactory nude in repose.^[1]

Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Sankt Sebastian" (in Neue Gedichte, 1907) seems to have a close correspondence in description and mood to Botticelli's painting, as Rilke's translator J.B. Leishman and Jane Davidson Reid have observed.^[2]

Notes[]

^ Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A study in ideal form, 1956, ch. 2, "Apollo."
^ Jane Davidson Reid, "Rilke's Sebastian and the Painters," Art Journal 27 (1967), pp. 24-33 + 39.

[1] Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A study in ideal form, 1956, ch. 2, "Apollo."

[2] Jane Davidson Reid, "Rilke's Sebastian and the Painters," Art Journal 27 (1967), pp. 24-33 + 39.

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v t Sandro Botticelli
List of works
Secular	Fortitude Primavera Pallas and the Centaur Venus and Mars The Birth of Venus Calumny of Apelles Illustrations to the Divine Comedy The Story of Nastagio Degli Onesti, part one Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts The Story of Virginia The Story of Lucretia
Religious	Sant'Ambrogio Altarpiece Adoration of the Magi (Florence) St. Sebastian Life of Esther Saint Augustine in His Study (Florence: Ognissanti) Sistine Chapel: Temptations of Christ, Youth of Moses and Punishment of the Sons of Korah Cestello Annunciation Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Munich) Saint Augustine in His Study (Florence: Uffizi) Holy Trinity Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Milan) The Last Communion of Saint Jerome The Mystical Nativity Scenes from the Life of Saint Zenobius The Man of Sorrows
Madonnas	Virgin and Child with an Angel (Florence) Madonna della Loggia Madonna and Child (Avignon) Madonna in Glory with Seraphim Madonna of the Rose Garden Virgin and Child with Two Angels (Naples) Virgin and Child with Two Angels (Strasbourg) Virgin and Child with an Angel (Boston) Madonna of the Magnificat Madonna of the Book Madonna of the Pomegranate Madonna Adoring the Child with Five Angels Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist Madonna del Padiglione
Portraits	Portrait of Smeralda Brandini Young Man (London) Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici Young Man (Washington, D.C.) Young Woman (Frankfurt) Young Man (Florence) Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel
Related	Botticelli Inferno (2016 documentary)