The Martyred Saint Sebastian

In a sunlight-flecked landscape two women in richly colorful garments support the slack body of a slender nude man with a golden halo. Artist Gustave Moreau represented holy women tending to the future Christian Saint Sebastian, after he was pierced by arrows. A helmet abandoned on the ground references Sebastian’s profession as a Roman soldier. He was punished for converting his fellow soldiers to Christianity. Expanding the academic tradition of European history painting, Moreau depicted mythological and biblical scenes such as this one, embellished with imaginative details and often heightened by tension or eroticism.