This convention has a tendency to destroy aesthetic distance and draws the viewer into the picture box. As either Titian's Venus of Urbino with her smouldering, sexually implicit stare or the questioning glance of the Grande Odalisque of J.A.D. Ingres inexorably draw us into their picture box to participate, so does the glance of St. Sebastian and/or St. Roch beckon us. Aesthetic distance is all but completely dissolved and there is a disquieting tug on our psyche as we find ourselves in close proximity with this lightly clad, young, Apollonian martyr-saint.

XX^th Century Resurgence of St. Sebastian

With the last of the major outbreaks of the plague in the early XVIII^th Century, the number of paintings using St. Sebastian as either the primary or secondary image fell dramatically. The XVIII^th and XIX^th Centuries produce but a handful of paintings of this martyr-saint. The last quarter of the XIX^th Century saw a re-emergence of interest in St. Sebastian. Few artists of note employed this martyr-saint in their compositions. A notable exception is the French artist Gustave Moreau who appeared enamored with the subject, painted eight different versions over an eleven year period from 1869 to 1880 (See: Figures 254 & 255). On the other hand, the XX^th Century saw a plethora of paintings and other compositions that featured St. Sebastian, but not as the patron saint of pestilence. By the end of the XX^th Century St. Sebastian had became irrevocably associated with the gay world.