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| Vittore Carpaccio, Saint George Slaying the Dragon, 1502, La Scuola della Schiavoni, Venice |
The interior is dark and cool. I can hardly see the walls at first, let alone make out the pictures adorning them. Then, a curtain is pulled back, flooding the interior with light and suddenly there he is, a dragon rearing on his hind legs but pierced through the head with a lance, blood pouring from mouth and skull. It is an inventive dragon: bat-like wings of a bluey green with rusty orange spines and black tips. Scales as well as feathery fur can be seen on its haunches and front legs, raised as if to pounce, or else in supplication. The tail is snake-like, curling away and up the left of the picture. Fearsome though the jagged teeth and claws are, there is a piteous look in the one eye we can see and the ears droop in an attitude of fear and surrender. The horse, also rearing on its hind legs and forming a triangle with the beast it faces, is larger than the dragon, going against my imagined images of this famous scene, where a tiny Saint George battles a massive hulking beast.
St George himself, almost stands astride his steed in shiny black armour as he thrusts home the death blow, shattering his lance in the process. The chivalrous knight, long wavy hair flying, wears a look of determined and focused calm on his profile face, reminiscent of Roman coins, while an equally calm princess looks on, clasping her hands as if in prayer. Scattered on the ground in gruesome detail and exemplary foreshortening, lie the dismembered bodies of previous sacrifices and their would-be saviours. In the background an oriental town sits on the shores of a limpid blue sea.
Vittore Carpaccio's scene of 1502 tells the familiar tale of St George, a wandering Christian knight, Dalmatian by birth, who kills the dragon to save a princess from being sacrificed. When the princess is saved and returned to her people the whole town of Selene is converted to Christianity and baptised by St George. The story comes from Jacobus Voragine's Golden Legend written in about 1260 in Latin and then translated and printed in Venice in 1475. It was to be a treasure trove of material for painters, sculptors and patrons alike.
It is unknown whether Carpaccio chose the story or whether his patrons the Schiavoni confraternity did. The Schiavoni, originating from Dalmatia, did have an affinity with the Saint, whose cult had taken hold in Europe from the eighth century onwards.
Images of the saint and visual narratives of his life can be seen in many different parts of the continent. A wonderful sculpture by Bernt Notke, complete with dragon, dismembered bodies, princess and horse, has a knight bearing a distinct resemblance to Carpaccio's St George in his static, upright stance. The saint is wearing accurate, fifteenth century armour
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| Bernt Notke, St George, 1489, Stockholm Cathedral, Stockholm |
and his horse has metal reins and leather stirrups. The spine of the dragon is made of real elk antler, the body of the horse from a real horse's hide and linen and bristles have been used for the horse's mane. The marble relief by Donatello, below, made much earlier than both Notke's statue and Carpaccio's canvas, depicts a similar composition with rearing horse, smallish dragon and princess clasping her hands.
St George had been known in England from as early as the eight century and It was in 1222 that the Synod of Oxford declared 23rd April to kept as a holiday in his honour. However, it was not until the end of the fourteenth century that George was adopted as Patron Saint of England (http://www.britannia.com/history/stgeorge.html). Images of him proliferate here and Westminster Abbey even housed one of his legs for a while before the dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 and the subsequent destruction of holy relics. St George's statue survives though in the corner of Henry VII's tomb, modelled in bronze. There are several depictions of the most well known episode from his life in our National Gallery, such as Paolo Uccello's depiction (below). If, however, you can make the trip, I do recommend a visit to the Scuola to admire Carpaccio's canvas and take in the atmosphere of early sixteenth century Venice. At the same time you will see Carpaccio's other canvases adorning the walls, including the next work I review here: The Vision of St Augustine, or, as I affectionately call it, "The one with a dog".
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| Donatello, St George and the Dragon, c. 1416, Marble, 39 x 120 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence |
St George had been known in England from as early as the eight century and It was in 1222 that the Synod of Oxford declared 23rd April to kept as a holiday in his honour. However, it was not until the end of the fourteenth century that George was adopted as Patron Saint of England (http://www.britannia.com/history/stgeorge.html). Images of him proliferate here and Westminster Abbey even housed one of his legs for a while before the dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 and the subsequent destruction of holy relics. St George's statue survives though in the corner of Henry VII's tomb, modelled in bronze. There are several depictions of the most well known episode from his life in our National Gallery, such as Paolo Uccello's depiction (below). If, however, you can make the trip, I do recommend a visit to the Scuola to admire Carpaccio's canvas and take in the atmosphere of early sixteenth century Venice. At the same time you will see Carpaccio's other canvases adorning the walls, including the next work I review here: The Vision of St Augustine, or, as I affectionately call it, "The one with a dog".
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| Paolo Uccello, c.1470, oil on canvas, 55.6 cm × 74.2 cm, The National Gallery, London |
Alison Barker
