Day 125 - Saint Sebastian
February 6, 2019
Gallery 305 is even more enormous than the last one (it's the space where the Met erects its Christmas tree and the Neapolitan presepio each year). The room is largely devoted to sculptures of various sizes and various materials (mostly marble, limestone, and wood), although it also contains paintings and tapestries. I'm surprised to see tapestries with religious themes (the life of the Virgin or of Christ, for example); it strikes me that most tapestries I've seen have shown scenes of the hunt or the unicorn or the unicorn being hunted. The standing statues of the Virgin holding the Christ child are notable for their curving forms and the use of contrapposto -- not entirely a Renaissance rediscovery, I realize. I'm also surprised that many of the statues, even ones of marble, were painted. I suppose that was a relatively easy way to show the elaborate decorations on the borders of the Virgin's robes.
I'm struck by the emotional power of a small oak carving of the entombment of Christ made in Germany or the Southern Netherlands around 1500. Christ looks emaciated; his ribs protrude from his chest, and his upper arm muscles are stringy. The Virgin, Saint John, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea look on sadly. The Virgin wears a conventional hooded robe, but the men seem to be dressed in clothing typical of the period, which gives the group of mourners added emotional force. I'm also interested to see a Netherlandish walnut figure of Saunt Bridget of Sweden She is seated behind a bookstand on which is placed a large open book. In her right hand she holds a pen, in her left an inkwell. According to legend, Christ dictated the book of Revelations to her. It's just nice to see a work that shows a woman of the period writing.
Today's object makes me giggle because to my modern eyes it looks so erotic. It's a statue of Saint Sebastian, perhaps 4 feet high and carved of poplar and painted, that was made in Austria or the Tyrol around 1475. The saint is shown as a pretty boy with long, curly hair, blue eyes, rosy cheeks and lips, a rapturous upward gaze, and a loincloth barely covering his pubis. He's lean but well-muscled. In short, he's sort of an adolescent girl's -- or a gay sculptor's? -- fantasy.
He's not alone in being eroticized. There's also a little statuette of Saint Catherine of Siena, whose high round breasts stand out so prominently that her garment appears to be cut away above the waist. I have to look closely to see the finely incised line demarcating the top of her bodice, A reminder that those Medieval sculptors were sensitive to the pleasures as well as the travails of the flesh.
I'm struck by the emotional power of a small oak carving of the entombment of Christ made in Germany or the Southern Netherlands around 1500. Christ looks emaciated; his ribs protrude from his chest, and his upper arm muscles are stringy. The Virgin, Saint John, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea look on sadly. The Virgin wears a conventional hooded robe, but the men seem to be dressed in clothing typical of the period, which gives the group of mourners added emotional force. I'm also interested to see a Netherlandish walnut figure of Saunt Bridget of Sweden She is seated behind a bookstand on which is placed a large open book. In her right hand she holds a pen, in her left an inkwell. According to legend, Christ dictated the book of Revelations to her. It's just nice to see a work that shows a woman of the period writing.
Today's object makes me giggle because to my modern eyes it looks so erotic. It's a statue of Saint Sebastian, perhaps 4 feet high and carved of poplar and painted, that was made in Austria or the Tyrol around 1475. The saint is shown as a pretty boy with long, curly hair, blue eyes, rosy cheeks and lips, a rapturous upward gaze, and a loincloth barely covering his pubis. He's lean but well-muscled. In short, he's sort of an adolescent girl's -- or a gay sculptor's? -- fantasy.
He's not alone in being eroticized. There's also a little statuette of Saint Catherine of Siena, whose high round breasts stand out so prominently that her garment appears to be cut away above the waist. I have to look closely to see the finely incised line demarcating the top of her bodice, A reminder that those Medieval sculptors were sensitive to the pleasures as well as the travails of the flesh.
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