Michelangelo's St. Sebastian in The Last Judgment

Michelangelo, Detail of St. Sebastian in The Last Judgment

Michelangelo’s Last Judgment is a composition so full of incidents inconsistent with an orthdox reading of the Last Judgment and theology that experts often have trouble explaining them. One such detail is the figure of Saint Sebastian who, according to legend, was executed by bow and arrow. Why then did Michelangelo pose the saint as though he was his own executioner about to pull an invisible bow-string while holding the arrows that killed him?

The answer is quite simple. While saints often hold the weapons that killed them as their identifying signs ("attributes"), they are not also posed as though they were their own executioner. Michelangelo's Saint Sebastian is. He is a painter, a self-representation of the artist, holding his arrows like an artist holds a fistful of paintbrushes. Look closely at the arrows and imagine them as brushes. It makes sense then that the saint resembles his own executioner because “every painter paints himself”. Other artists indicated their alter ego in both saint and archer to convey the same message; Michelangelo did so more concisely in the saint alone.

For Saint Sebastians by other artists, see two by Mantegna and one each by Barrocci,.....and Egon Schiele.