Robert Medley’s Sebastiane, Or An Autobiographical Incident

filmmaker derek jarman sits on a sofa covered with purple velvet in the yellow painted living room of his cottage in 1989. he is white with black hair, wearing a denim shirt under a mushroom colored jacket. a book sits next to him on the sofa, and a large pale toned painting of a reclined nude white male figure with another male figure in a tunic in front of it, and sketched out crowds in the periphery. in the room, a plant sits on a low stool at the left, diamond pane cabinet windows inset into the wall on the right have a piece of driftwood studded with pebbles or something. the photo was taken for world of interiors magazine by john vere brown, and they have run it three times so far. — Derek Jarman at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, in front of a painting by Robert Medley, photographed for World of Interiors in 1989 by John Vere Brown

The World of Interiors has run the same story about visiting Derek Jarman at Prospect Cottage three times: the first was in 1989. The second was in June 2019, and ngl, I can’t figure the hook. Jarman’s partner Keith Collins had died the year before, so the cottage was in limbo, but the Art Fund campaign to rescue it wouldn’t come until 2020. There was a restoration of The Garden (1990), and an exhibition of paintings he made at Dungeness that spring, but neither seems big enough. I just saw it trending in a sidebar, but it turns out the third time was last February, the 30th anniversary of Jarman’s death. So bless the editors and algorithms of World of Interiors, I guess.

What caught my attention was the large painting over Jarman’s sofa, in a style like none of his other works. Which makes sense, since it was not by Jarman, but by Robert Medley. The painting “is entitled Sebastiane, and is autobiographical in the sense that Robert was in the film of that name that Derek made in 1974.”

a detail of the photo of derek jarman in his living room, cropped with his face staring deadpan at the camera, but the point is to show the details of the painting on the wall behind, which is apparently based on a photo of a scene from jarman's first film, sebastiane, in which the emperor diocletian attends a wild party in his court, and ends up killing a young male slave slash catamite, who is presumably the nearly nude figure laid out in the center of the painting. the artist, robert medley, played diocletian in the scene, and so called this painting an autobiographical incident. it's one of several medley artworks in jarman's collection — Robert Medley CBE RA’s painting, titled either Sebastiane or An Autobiographical Incident, 1976, in Derek Jarman’s cottage, image: JVB4WOI

According to his dealer, Medley, CBE RA, was one of Jarman’s painting teachers, and clearly a friend of the artist-turned-filmmaker. [The Sebastiane painting appears in the background of another Medley painting , from 1980, of Jarman and a friend having tea.] His only acting credit on IMDb was Sebastiane, where he played 3rd century Roman emperor Diocletian.

Which was a helluva role in a helluvan opening scene, especially for a first feature film. Medley/Diocletian presides over a garish, bacchanalian celebration in a tinseled Imperial court that looks like it was staged in a friend’s living room, which it probably was. After a satyr-ical dance number, Diocletian, ensconced on a cramped dais, learns one of his boy toy entourage is secretly Christian, and has him killed on the spot. Another catamite and Diocletian’s favorite, and the head of his guard, Sebastiane, who is also secretly Christian, protest, and the kid is sprawled out and brutally killed, while Sebastiane is exiled, setting the rest of the film in motion. That’s all for Diocletian.

But not for the painting. In his journals published in 1992 as Modern Nature, Jarman wrote, “Robert’s paintings are dappled with woodland light, elusive as the fritillary, they tell their secrets slowly.” He also said Medley made the painting in 1976, so when the film was released, from photographs of the first scene, and that it was actually titled, An Autobiographical Incident.

a screenshot of the opening scene of derek jarman's sebastiane in which a black slave in a loincloth has killed one pink twink in a lamé bikini on the edge of a colorfully painted dais, and is now manhandling another one, just before he kills him too. figures in approximated roman dress are visible in the background, as is a handpainted pink and green marbled backdrop — catamites meeting their doom in the court of Emperor Diocletian, as depicted by Derek Jarman in someone’s living room in 1974 while shooting Sebastiane.

After rewatching the opening scene, it turns out the slaughtered catamites are laid out on the edge of the dais in the opposite directions of Medley’s painting, with heads or feet facing the wrong way. Which might mean the painting depicts the Emperor’s eye view. Perhaps Medley was taking photos himself on the set, documenting this autobiographical incident.

After pandemic closure and some restoration, Creative Folkestone now offers interior tours of Prospect Cottage. While other works by Medley appear in recent photos, I can’t tell if the Sebastiane picture is still there.