Le Martyre de saint Sébastien

Memling painted this in Bruges around 1475, in a city that lived with the plague. That fear is the reason a Roman soldier shot full of arrows was one of the most requested saints of the age. Arrows were imagined as the way plague struck, out of the air and at random, so Sebastian, who survived them, was prayed to for protection. What is striking is how little suffering Memling allows. Five arrows are in the body, yet Sebastian shows no pain, gazing calmly out while a small figure of the emperor Diocletian watches from among the rocks. Behind them a harbour town recedes into the soft, hazy distance that his patrons across Flanders paid so well for.