1506
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Saint George is a 1506 ink by Benedetto Montagna, a Renaissance work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This engraving shows a knight in armor holding a spear, standing over a dragon. Behind him, a city burns on a hillside. To the right, a woman reaches toward the knight while a small child looks on. The lines are sharp and detailed, with heavy shading to show shadows and textures. The knight’s armor and the dragon’s scales are made with fine, crisscrossed lines called cross-hatching. This technique creates depth without color, just like shading in a pencil sketch. Try looking up cross-hatching to see how artists build shadows this way.
Benedetto Montagna (c. 1480–1555/58) was an Italian engraver and painter. Montagna was born in Vicenza, the son of the leading painter of the city, Bartolomeo Montagna, with whom he trained and perhaps continued to…
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