St. George and the Dragon
1520
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1520
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
St. George and the Dragon is a 1520 by Wolfgang Huber, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A knight on horseback stabs a dragon while a princess watches from a hill. The sky swirls with clouds, and trees twist like flames around them. Huber drew the people and the landscape with the same quick, scratchy lines. That makes the figures feel like part of the rocks and trees, not separate from them. The light seems to burst from the knight’s spear, almost like fireworks. If you like how Huber turns a story into a wild, tangled scene, look up *sfumato*.
Landscape draftsman Wolfgang Huber made only a few prints. In this woodcut, he developed ideas from his drawings, such as the radiating light, agitated clouds, and soaring trees. Here, he applied these ideas to the story of Saint George slaying the dragon. Huber rendered the figures with the same short marks as the trees and rocks surrounding them so that they appear to blend into the landscape.
Despite written legends placing Saint George’s slaying of the dragon in North Africa, this scene takes place in a Northern European forest.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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