1512
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Saint George Slaying the Dragon is a 1512 by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A knight in red armor stabs a dragon with a spear. The princess watches from the left, calm as the scene unfolds. This was painted in the early 1500s when knights and dragons were common stories. Lucas Cranach often used bright colors and sharp lines to tell these tales. His court job meant he painted for nobles who loved bold images. Try looking up Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553) next.
In 1505, Cranach became court painter to Friedrich the Wise, Elector of Saxony, who encouraged the production of prints because they promoted the artistic and intellectual vitality of his court and the magnificence of its patronage. The Holy Roman emperor Maximilian did the same, making aristocratic sponsorship of printmaking a critical factor in the rising status of the woodcut. Cranach-together with Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg and Hans Burgkmair in Augsburg (both on view nearby)-elevated the Northern woodcut to the highest level of artistic expression in the first decade of the 16th…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving.
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