Friday, August 3, 2007

Shot to the heart, and you're to blame...

StSebastian1

Outside the St. John the Baptist Church in Liliw are various statues of Roman Catholic Saints. Attending a Catholic Church in high school enables me to become utterly familiar with most of them. We have a religion subject specifically for learning faith and catholicism (as if faith can be learned, huh?).

So anway, one of the statues that really caught my eyes was St. Sebastian. His iconic image has always been depicted in literature or photos as the youth tied to a post and shot with arrows in most parts of his body. Exactly like this.

StSebastian2

The Roman Emperor ordered his death. Left for dead with these arrows burrowed in his flesh, Sebastian recovered but was later beaten to death on the order of Diocletian.

Such horrid depiction was a favorite subject among Renaissance painters. Even today, such image is still popularly referred to whether in movies, music videos, musical lyrics, theatrical plays, etc.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went to a catholic school too but I must have been absent when the story of St. Sebastian was taught. :) Very interesting story though. The statue is quite disturbing.

pieterbie said...

Pretty cruel, heh?
But then a lot of cruelties were justified by religion, not?
I was raised to be a Roman Catholic, but I started rebelling when I was 11.
Haven't stopped since and I'm not planning to.

Anonymous said...

St. Sebastian does look good on this sculpture--as if the struck arrows were nothing... ehehe.. :)

I'm tempted to agree with pieterbie about his observation, which is very true up to this day?!

Anonymous said...

magaling, kuhang kuha ang details, ako nahihirapan kumuha ng pataas lalo na kung ang background ay langit, kasi maitim ang subject kapag ako ang kumukuha.

Anonymous said...

... you give love, a bad name! Hahaha! Bon jovi fan ba?

Ouch is the first word that came when I saw these photos. Ang sakit siguro mapana dyan. It seems interesting yung mga display talaga dyan sa church na yan.

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