How do you recognize Saint Stephen in art?

His history

Etienne is a young deacon of Jewish origin, one of the Seven, those disciples of Christ mentioned by Saint Luke (Acts 6, 3-5). They are honest, wise men.

They are responsible for assisting the apostles for the benefit of the community: taking care of widows, the sick, prayer, and material aid to the poorest of the nascent community.

Étienne is eloquent and soon, the prodigies he performs to help the poorest people displease the authorities. Summoned to the so-called “freedmen’s” synagogue in Jerusalem, he stands up to the accusers and overcomes their arguments because he knows the scriptures perfectly.

Dragged before the Sanhedrin, the highest authority in Judaism at the time, he was accused of several blasphemies, but he dismantled the trial made against him by his opponents, who, to finally get the better of him, had him accused and put to death. .

Between the year 33 and the year 36, he was condemned to be stoned in Jerusalem. Saul, the future apostle Paul, is said to have witnessed his stoning. Saint Stephen is known as the first Christian martyr.

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Its symbols and attributes

A deacon’s robe (a dalmatic), stones set on his head, a book of the Gospels in his hand, a red cloak, a censer.

1 – Saint Stephen is tonsured and is represented with the stones of his torture.2 – He is often represented at the time of his stoning, his face turned towards the sky.3 – He wears an embroidered red dalmatic (robe), a palm of the martyr, a Gospel.

>>> Find our entire Heritage notebook “Recognizing saints in art”, for free download here <<<

Christian saints form the invisible seam that connects us to history. This bond of attachment, very early attested and carefully compiled in the Acts of the Apostles or the annals of the martyrs, enriched with the popular and fantasized collection of tales, sheds light on the admiration for these figures larger than life.

These men and women have kept their names, while art gave each of them a face. This face is also ours, faced with the thousand adversities of existence, faced with doubt or a revelation. The saints, to paraphrase Victor Hugo, do not need a telescope to see God, they see him with the naked eye. Everywhere and everywhere.

Our parents recognized them at first glance and knew the attributes associated with these great characters. This is no longer the case for our children, fascinated by other symbols now occupying the front of the cultural scene. To reconnect with this popular culture, and rediscover an intimate link with our familiar saints, let’s teach children to decipher, in a church or in a museum, the scene that is happening in front of them. Let’s help them identify them thanks to the symbols that accompany them, to convey their incredible human and spiritual adventure.

Art allows us to memorize this iconographic repertoire, both humble, like a holy image hanging above a child’s bed, or triumphal, like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Sylvie Bee Suzuki, journalist and writer. Specialist in Western and Asian art history.

How do you recognize Saint Stephen in art?