. MANCHESTER ART REVIEW SCULPTURE CLAIRE CURNEEN SAINT SEBASTIAN

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ART IN MANCHESTER

CLAIRE CURNEEN – ST. SEBASTIAN 2004. Manchester City Art Gallery Mosely Street.

One of several similar sculptures by Curneen on the theme of the pre- martyrdom failed execution of St. Sebastian (who died c. CE 287). It’s a two foot tall modelled ceramic porcelean figure, lightly glazed, with gold leaf blood around the wounds made by the arrows. Sebastian seems almost to be a mummified figure.

The gallery description is of him standing ‘Trimphant, trancending pain through mental strength’, but he looks pitiful and wretched, and almost zombie like – as close to death as he can go without actually giving up his life.

Sebastian was a Roman Praetorian guard serving the Emperor Diocletian, but he was a convert to the growing cult of Christianity. He was sentanced to death for converting fellow soldiers and protecting Christians from persecution.

He isn’t pinned to the tree by the many arrows stuck in him (reminding modern audiences of the death of Boromir in Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings), but leaning against the tree, possibly having just been rescued by his supporters.

Sebastian survived the attempted execution, but he continued in his evangelical mission, and openly continued his mission, almost suicidaly inviting an inevitable second attempt on his life. He preached directly in the presense of the Emperor who immediately had his meeting broken up and sebastian arrested. The Romans quickly beat Sebastian to death, and cast his carcass into a privy cesspit.

The body was rescued, allegedly by people guided by Sebastian’s own ghost revealing his location, and buried under the temple church named after him in Vatican City.

Strangely, it is his brief period of survival that many artists regard as worthy of their attention. Sebastian is depicted almost as often as Christ in Western art. Curneen’s little statues are an interesting contribution to the legend.

Sebastian was a fanatic, who could have done more to promote his faith by operating from hiding, underground and with discretion. Instead, he made a heroic martyr of himself deliberately, and inspired other Christians to bait the Romans into persecuting them all the more. In some ways he was a precurser to today’s suicide bombers.

He is depicted by Curneen with a very modest penis, and no testicles. Surviving an attempted execution does not do much for one’s sex drive. There is the air of Edvard Munch’s Scream in his expression of silent stoic despair. Sebastian was not a man to learn from his mistakes. An interesting sculpture that raises many questions about the ongoing veneration of martyrs in the post 9/11 era.