The Martyr and Distraction: Jacques Callot’s Etching of St Sebastian (ca. 1630)

In The Martyrdom of St Sebastian, one of the most unusual of his many innovative compositions, the seventeenth-century etcher Jacques Callot takes the long view. Departing from art historical precedent, Callot declines to focus on Sebastian’s lithe, arrow-pierced torso, choosing instead to depict the attempted execution from a distance, so that the figure tied to a stake is the barely discernible focal point of a composition that measures only sixteen by thirty-two centimeters. It seems, in fact, that the executioners themselves can barely see their target, because while three arrows have hit their mark, Callot shows at least six that have missed, their course having been diverted by poor aim or an unexpected gust of wind. Perhaps the executioners were just distracted.

This talk will explore the novelty of Callot’s depiction of Sebastian in light of the formal characteristics of Callot’s larger oeuvre. These characteristics include the representation of empty space or void, the thematization of distraction through miniaturization and copia, and a temporality of passage and flux. Sustained attention to the formal quality of Callot’s graphic work reveals a worldview that can be described in terms of Epicurean atomism, Lucretian poetics of the distanced view, as well as Machiavellian ambition and free will. Yet The Martyrdom of St Sebastian thematizes something more unsettling: the condition of human existence as indelibly marked by distraction, or diversion (divertissement), whereby life is lived (or extinguished) while constantly dreaming of something else. Reflecting on the contemporary attenuation of attention through a culture of incessant stimulation through electronic media, my work seeks to understand what attention and distraction meant in the work of one of the most brilliant artists of the Early Modern era. Printed images were one of the first engines for medial, social distraction, yet what did distraction mean in the early seventeenth century, and how did it differ from, or resemble the current dissipation of attention?

Organised by Dr. Sarah Grandin, Lecturer in the Arts of Early Modern France, the Courtauld and Dr Esther Chadwick, Senior Lecturer in History of Art, the Courtauld.