Egon Schiele's Self-portrait as Saint Sebastian

Schiele, Self-portrait as St. Sebastian (1914-15)

In a poster for an exhibition of his paintings (above) Egon Schiele drew on the age-old tradition of presenting St. Sebastian as a symbol for the artist himself suffering the pangs of artistic creation. Despite its importance, it is a tradition still unknown to today's art historians. Nevertheless, ever since the early Renaissance Sebastian's arrows have symbolized the painter's brushes. Moreover, given that the arrows, or rather "the brushes", point inwards to penetrate the saint himself, the idea is conveyed from one artist to another that "every painter paints himself." Even the unusual points to the arrows in Schiele's image seem to suggest the softness of brushes more clearly than the hardness of steel.

Further, the execution of the saint is an allegory for the execution of the work of art in the artist's mind with the saint's death (or, rather, the artist's) symbolizing its completion.

And, lastly here, Schiele's self-identification with the saint symbolizes the purity (and, thus, saintliness) of the artist's mind when it eventually, after much suffering, completes the work of art. Just as a saint's life imitates Christ's suffering and redemption as a guide for our own, so the artist's mind in the process of creation follows, allegorically at least, the suffering and redemption of the saint's example.

See these other examples:
Perugino's Bust of St. Sebastian