The representation of St. Sebastian in the XX^th and XXI^st Centuries are clearly eons apart from those before the XIX^th Century. The religio-spiritual content possesses only the faintest glimmer as most artists focused on the genitals--i.e., penis centered.

An icon, particularly a gay icon may be a larger-than-life image. Certainly, since his pre-Congregation canonization, St Sebastian's reputation grew to be larger-than-life! His popularity eclipsed most other Christian saints. A gay icon possesses an inherent glamour, a transcendent allure. In the case of St. Sebastian that may be seen to be the glamour of his familial position, his martyrdom and the appeal of his scantily clad figure. A gay icon exhibits strength through adversity. Sebastian qualifies! He knowingly returned to the Imperial Palace and confronted the Emperor. And, a gay icon may be androgynous, or possess an ambiguous sexuality. In a small number of images, the martyr-saint may be viewed as androgenous. However, the vast majority of images of St. Sebastian portray him clearly as a male from post adolescence through maturity, although, many of the images tend to display the martyr-saint below the age of twenty, although an equal number show the martyr-saint in full blown maturity.

Women Artists and St. Sebastian

In the 1960s-1980s the "second wave" of feminism took firm hold in the United States. The 1990s saw what is termed as the "third wave." It is in the 1990s that women artists more frequently began to employ St. Sebastian as subject in their repertoire. But, this decade did not see the first representation of the martyr saint as subject. In the latter part of the XVI^th Century, Lavinia Fontana (d. 1614) represented the saint coupled with Sts Cecelia (See: Figure 265). In the XVI^th and XVII^th Centuries women had frequently painted the nude female. But, the representation of the nude or semi-nude male was rare due to the cultural admonition against women beholding a nude male. Yet, the representation of St. Sebastian by Lavinia Fontana was not only unusual, it was relatively unique. Like many of her male counterparts, she portrays the saint not only as an Apollonian ideal, but with a loin drape that is also rather erotic.