Public Executions In The Arena

[Apostate]

Which is why she's my favourite saint! Thanks Michele

So I had prurience attack, and went looking for an artistic depiction of St. Eulalia, besides Michele's, that showed her bare ass naked and found this

St. Eulalia on the Bonfire, Bartolomé Ordóñez

Photograph and explanation of a relief of the martyrdom of St. Eulalia, with a link to our study of the iconography of St. Eulalia.

www.christianiconography.info

"a lounging odalisque" that's not quite full frontally nude.

But she’ll do.

 

[sifax]

The rest of Santa Eulalia´s martyrdorm (whipping and crucifixion) in Cathedral of Barcelona by Bartolome Ordoñez.

I have to confess that with these images inside the church I could not concentrate on priest´s words.

 

[sifax]

I think Quoom has inspired directly in the Ordoñez´s one

 

[sifax]

The same to Jac Avila´s Martyr

 

[Eulalia]

Eulalia of Barcelona is almost certainly the same saint, though the Catalans hotly deny it. She has a different feast day (E. of B. Feb 12th, E. of M. Dec. 10th), and the Barcelona legend has added lots more interesting tortures to her ordeal, hence the reliefs in her cathedral which no doubt raise the thoughts of the congregation to higher levels of contemplation than any priest's homily (cf. Sifax's mystical experience! )

 

[Apostate]

Eulalia of Barcelona is almost certainly the same saint, though the Catalans hotly deny it. She has a different feast day (E. of B. Feb 12th, E. of M. Dec. 10th), and the Barcelona legend has added lots more interesting tortures to her ordeal, hence the reliefs in her cathedral which no doubt raise the thoughts of the congregation to higher levels of contemplation than any priest's homily (cf. Sifax's mystical experience! )

Akin to that of Saint Teresa of Avila?

 

[Apostate]

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Herr Doktor Freud, please call your service."

 

[Arcimboldo]

Eulalia of Barcelona is almost certainly the same saint, though the Catalans hotly deny it. She has a different feast day (E. of B. Feb 12th, E. of M. Dec. 10th), and the Barcelona legend has added lots more interesting tortures to her ordeal, hence the reliefs in her cathedral which no doubt raise the thoughts of the congregation to higher levels of contemplation than any priest's homily (cf. Sifax's mystical experience! )

Probably nobody knows the hagiographic details of the martyrdom of the two Eulalias better than our own Eulalia.

I agree that the ordeal of the Catalan saint is more diversified (Eulalia, why did you decide to identify with the martyr from Extremadura?). I really like the Barcelona story! I only was repelled by just one detail - what they did to her eyes. But the fire between her spread legs was really nice (an advantage of the Saint Andrew's cross over other forms of crucifixion)!

Therefore - needless to say - my own picture was about Eulalia of Barcelona.

In contrast, the famous painting of John W. Waterhouse depicts the end of Eulalias's martyrdom in Merida.
By the way, snow is unusual in Merida as well as in Barcelona - a miracle!

 

[Apostate]

Probably nobody knows the hagiographic details of the martyrdom of the two Eulalias better than our own Eulalia.

I agree that the ordeal of the Catalan saint is more diversified (Eulalia, why did you decide to identify with the martyr from Extremadura?). I really like the Barcelona story! I only was repelled by just one detail - what they did to her eyes. But the fire between her spread legs was really nice (an advantage of the Saint Andrew's cross over other forms of crucifixion)!

Therefore - needless to say - my own picture was about Eulalia of Barcelona.

In contrast, the famous painting of John W. Waterhouse depicts the end of Eulalias's martyrdom in Merida.
By the way, snow is unusual in Merida as well as in Barcelona - a miracle!

View attachment 1063002

View attachment 1063007

I prefer yours to Waterhouse's. In my opinion it really does work better artistically.

 

[Eulalia]

Eulalia, why did you decide to identify with the martyr from Extremadura?

I suppose it was that I first happened to learn of Eulalia of Mérida, when I was about the same age as she was, and found her story very exciting - though it was a fairly brief and bowdlerised version, in a 'Little Book of Saints' that I found in my bedroom when staying with a 'churchy' great-aunt. I picked up more and more information as time went on - as a student, I got to know of Prudentius' 'epic' poem about her, which - for all its weighty style and moral message brings out the girl's spunky, impudent character and made me identify with her more and more.

It was only later that I became aware of her Barcelona 'twin', and the more elaborate tortures she experienced, and the range of artistic portrayals of her sufferings in medieval illuminations, baroque sculptures, woodcuts in early printed books, up to the present day. I love the X-cross (as a Scot, of course, it's the right one for me!), especially your gorgeous imagining of it - in Prudentius, Eul of Mérida is bound between two pillars and braziers placed around her naked body to roast her, but she shakes her long hair so it catches fire, hastening her end, when her burning body is thrown out on the icy cold pavement of the Forum, as in Waterhouse's painting (though the T-cross, and her discreet clothing, aren't part of the legend, her naked body is concealed overnight by snow)

So I came to know, and eagerly identify with, Eulalia firstly through written, literary accounts, and imagined being tortured like Eul of Mérida was (scourged, racked and torn with hooks, then roasted), only later discovered Eul of Barcelona and the many more visual versions of her story.

 

[Arcimboldo]

I prefer yours to Waterhouse's. In my opinion it really does work better artistically.

Thank you very much! But I think our preferences depend on the degree of our special deviation

 

[Eulalia]

I prefer yours to Waterhouse's. In my opinion it really does work better artistically.

Yes, I think Waterhouse himself might have agreed actually - it's a strange painting, starting mainly as an exercise in perspective, with the drastically foreshortened view of the dying martyr in her crucifix pose - his preliminary sketch in some ways works better, to those of us used to more freehand, impressionistic artworks - she certainly looks more brutalised, more convincingly martyred - and her body, though not nude, at least is only scantily covered and has a more 'tortured' form:



Of course he had to tidy it up and make it respectable to hang in the Royal Academy, but the end result doesn't really quite work.

 

[Apostate]

Thank you very much! But I think our preferences depend on the degree of our special deviation

Why, yes.

 

[Arcimboldo]

Yes, I think Waterhouse himself might have agreed actually - it's a strange painting, starting mainly as an exercise in perspective, with the drastically foreshortened view of the dying martyr in her crucifix pose - his preliminary sketch in some ways works better, to those of us used to more freehand, impressionistic artworks - she certainly looks more brutalised, more convincingly martyred - and her body, though not nude, at least is only scantily covered and has a more 'tortured' form:

View attachment 1063062

Of course he had to tidy it up and make it respectable to hang in the Royal Academy, but the end result doesn't really quite work.

Interesting! Thank you for sharing! I didn't know this preliminary version. Though I like the keenness of details of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, I must admit it works better in that rough "sketch style" (at least for our "special deviation")!

 

[Apostate]

Interesting! Thank you for sharing! I didn't know this preliminary version. Though I like the keenness of details of the Pre-Raphaelite artists, I must admit it works better in that rough "sketch style" (at least for our "special deviation")!

I like to think of it as "a vanishingly small demographic."

 

[Arcimboldo]

I like to think of it as "a vanishingly small demographic."

Do you think about aficionados of Victorian visual art or of sadomasochism? At least the community of sadomasochists is not vanishingly small

 

[Apostate]

Do you think about aficionados of Victorian visual art or of sadomasochism? At least the community of sadomasochists is not vanishingly small

Arcimboldo, I speak specifically about that which we call "crux." BDSM is quite commonplace, even chic in some circles.

Kim Kardashian Gives Us BDSM Chic At The Met Gala - Grazia

Kim Kardashian has stunned onlookers in her BDSM-like custom Balenciaga at the Met Gala. The influencer was introduced to creative director Demna Gvasalia through her former husband Kanye West.

graziamagazine.com

But that which is here in Michele Patri's thread, along with the work of Damian, Markus, Jastrow, Bobinder, Yusseby, Jedakk, Makar, you, and others, I believe is limited to a very limited audience.

I would say "insist"or "maintain," but I have yet to see any mainstream media articles, and have no idea if any serious research has been done, and I decline to do any, for I am a lazy man.

 

[Eulalia]

I believe is limited to a very limited audience.

Well, we've totted up > 27,000 registered members here - only a tiny proportion remain really active, most are lurkers or just dropping in to look around, and even 27k is < 0.004% of the human population ... but still ....

 

[GeorgeL]

This Nubian slave was given the oportunity to win her freedom. She had to face a tiger in the arena... The beast, a well trained woman eater, was too much for her...

 

[pete123]

'Public mounting'
Sentenced to be raped nude in the arena
Maybe already published

View attachment 437609

This is actually referenced in Daniel Mannix's book "Those who are about to die" as one of the midday novelty executions in the Colosseum:

"A prostitute and her pimp gave an exhibition of the various positions of sexual intercourse
but in the middle of an embrace, Carpophorus set the Molossian hounds on the
couple and they were quickly torn to pieces. "