Saint George and the Dragon

One attribute, two pictures

Saint George is identified by the dragon, and by very little else — armour, a lance, occasionally a rescued princess and a distant town. This collection holds more than one treatment of the subject, and comparing the catalogue entries shows how much a fixed attribute leaves open. Here the record gives an upright canvas; elsewhere in the same collection the encounter is set into a small horizontal landscape panel. The sign that names the saint is identical in both. Everything the picture is otherwise free to do changes.

What the record holds

The entry dates this work to 1560 and gives the National Gallery in London as its location. The dimensions are 158 x 100 cm, upright and close to life scale. It is filed under Religion, Fantasy and mythological cultural heritage, with Mannerism Late Renaissance as the style. The measured colour family of the image is yellow.

What the style term describes

Mannerism, the label the record applies, names the phase of Italian painting that followed the High Renaissance and is characterised by elongated figures, unstable poses and compressed, steeply arranged space. It is a description of handling, not of subject. A dragon fight is a subject that gives such handling something to hold on to: motion, torsion, and a body in the act of turning.