by Ian Dejardin, Dulwich Picture Gallery’s director
Guido Reni’s St Sebastians have been coming down this week. This has been one of the most fascinating displays I’ve seen for ages, and I shall miss this particularly beautiful art-history lesson.
I noticed, however, at the weekend that the cover of The Economist featured a political cartoon in which Gordon Brown was caricatured as St Sebastian, with a sniggering Tony Blair in the background – you can see a picture of that cover via the Spectator website here. I wonder if all the publicity for our little show has somehow reinvigorated the St Sebastian image in the public consciousness? Unfortunately, the cartoonist had used Rubens’s great St Sebastian as his model, so it’s hard to tell.
Either way, I think we should be watching out for other signs of heightened ‘Sebastian-awareness’ over the next few months.
St Sebastian going up
Selling St Sebastian
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2 Comments
Such a fab cover – I did a real double take when I saw it on the news stands, and spent a few minutes trying to work out whether it was one of ‘our’ St Sebastians. Thanks for clearing up the provenance!
I love the new take on St Sebastian!! I think Brown would probably need several workouts to obtain a physique like that!!