How did Saint Sebastian - an early Christian martyr and catholic saint -become a famous gay icon? Well, one answer might be that it all leads back to a famous painting by the Italian baroque painter Guido Reni from 1606 called "The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian". The semi-nude of a young male pierced with arrows clearly contains homoerotic overtones.
Numerous other painters have been fascinated by the motif, among others Caravaggio, El Greco and more recently Egon Schiele, and then we also have the poetic and visually appealing film "Sebastiane" from 1976 by the Gay British filmmaker Derek Jarman.
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Guido Reni
El Greco