St. Sebastian Tended by Irene
This painting from 1625 follows pre-established traditions of Sebastian as a plague saint and a devotional image that contemporary viewers would recognize. According to art historian Marshall, Sebastian's status as a protector from plague was built on an interpretation that he was the closest human imitation of Christ; not only did he take on the suffering of humanity as his own, but he was restored to life only to be beheaded. This way, those who venerated him could pray that he would take on their sickness as his own and survive. Marshall then elaborates that for the Early Renaissance period, images of Sebastian would directly play into this veneration principle: citing images where Sebastian is thrust into the foreground, facing the viewer directly, she writes that the narrative is removed from the painting and substituted with a pure, devotional image (1994).
In the painting, Sebastian still remains in the foreground, but his head is down and his gaze is averted. More importantly, narrative has returned to the image, with the notable inclusion of Irene removing the arrows from his body. A plaque at the Allen Memorial Art Museum explains that this comes from a Counter-Reformatory time in the Church, where paintings emphasized Catholicism as a caring religion. Rather than asking the viewer to behold Sebastian's holiness, the image suggests Sebastian is being cared for and sheltered from harm.
By reinserting the narrative, ter Brugghen draws the pleasure in suffering away from Sebastian's martyrdom, and toward recovery. Although Sebastian is rendered beautifully, with attention to his figure, his pain is not sexualized because its source is made clear by the narrative and shifted to Irene. Her caring is the source of his pleasure, while the arrows are the source of his pain. This line becomes much blurrier with the female representations.
In this rendering of St. Sebastian, his relaxed face and slumped body don't convey pain, yet his supportive legs suggest that he is not unconscious. Could there be a biological reason that even while consciously feeling the trauma of puncture wounds and bound wrists he could be in a relaxed state? A study looked at the influence of daily meditation on pain perception and found that participants had a "decreased sensitivity to pain after just a few minutes of mindfulness meditation." The discussion of this finding indicated that the decrease in pain perception might be based less on the removal of the sensation of pain, and more on learning to "control their emotional reaction to it" (Bond, 2007). Although there's no evidence to suggest St. Sebastian was in a meditative state, perhaps these findings could be extrapolated to include someone who has a strong religious connection. A separate study found that patients with advanced cancer who frequently attended church reported less pain than those who did not go (Delgado-Guay et al., 2011). St. Sebastian's pain was probably more acute than the long-term pain of the cancer patients, but there could be links between his devout connection to god and tolerance for pain.