As a result of Sebastian’s homosexual icon standing is so layered and deep-rooted, it has additionally proved malleable. On the peak of the HIV/Aids epidemic within the Nineteen Eighties and early ’90s, his picture was referenced in works by modern artists together with Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz, each of whom would die of the illness. In medieval occasions, Sebastian was perceived as a saint who may shield folks from the plague, maybe due to the way in which Irene was in a position to heal his arrow wounds. “There are clear parallels with the way in which he’s embraced within the Nineteen Eighties, throughout a really completely different plague, when depictions of Sebastian herald him as a sort of patron saint of queerness, illness and perseverance,” Fountain says.
