Saint Sebastian

Kubišta’s Saint Sebastian is a remarkable preparatory drawing for an equally superb painting. On the one hand, it is Cubist in style, while, on the other, it looks like a technical drawing or plan. The core of the composition is the right−angled triangle that outlines the saint’s head. The head’s dominant role, with crystalline forms on the forehead, is already apparent in the drawing. The inclination of the head is formed by a system of two intersecting ellipses interrelated with two vertical ellipses that constitute the corpus of the saint’s body. At first glance, the geometric form is entirely transcendental. Jan Zrzavý characterized the painting Saint Sebastian as Kubišta’s self−portrait. Kubišta stylized himself into the role of a martyr, thus personifying the defence of modernist art that he represented.