When the Saints Go Arting In: Denis

Today I learned about Saint Denis who, after being decapitated, picked his head up and walked down a hill, preaching the whole time. I don’t know how the sermons sounded, or what that means for our scientific understanding of speech and tracheas and such, but it makes the artistic depictions of him AMAZING.

Even in a simple woodcut like this, it’s easy to see that Denis’s ability to see around corners and under the fridge would have been incredible. I’d avoid taking him ten pin bowling, though.

In some of the pictures like this one by Andre d Ypres, Denis looks a little sleepy. I guess walking around while absolutely gushing blood can be pretty tiring.

WAKE UP DENIS, YOU NEED TO GET TO THE DRY CLEANER BEFORE IT CLOSES.

Probably my favourite thing about depictions of St Denis is that artists sometimes struggle with the problem of where to put his halo. In this example, Leon Bonnat goes with “neck sparkler” and hopes for the best.

Whereas this artist nailed the subtle halo, but forgot one of the fundamental principles of decapitation.

Here’s Denis at Notre Dame, where if you listen closely you can almost hear the sculptures whispering to each other.

Angel 1: “Dude, Denis brought his own head to church”.

Angel 2: “Shhhhhh I want to see him take communion”.

Denis: “Guys, I can hear you”.

This sculpture makes Denis look like he’s on an angry walk back to the barber’s, to very justifiably make a complaint about his haircut.

So there. That’s Saint Denis. And before you go making silly jokes about him losing his head, or speaking from the gut, or giving a little head, or heading in the right direction, or hey buddy my eyes are down here, don’t. By the look on his face, he’s already had it up to here with silly jokes.

Sorry.