Bronze St. George the Dragon Slayer Statue

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Being the talented sculptor, Donatello's work received appreciation and applause across Italy. Saint George by Donatello was a beautiful piece, and that is why it earned its place in the Orsanmichele church in Florence. The masses loved that it paid tribute to Roman heroism. The statue not being created with expensive bronze did not stop anyone from loving it. The narrative has pre-Christian origins ( Jason and Medea, Perseus and Andromeda, Typhon, etc.), [1] and is recorded in various saints' lives prior to its attribution to St. George specifically. It was particularly attributed to Saint Theodore Tiro in the 9th and 10th centuries, and was first transferred to Saint George in the 11th century. The oldest known record of Saint George slaying a dragon is found in a Georgian text of the 11th century. [2] [3] Zurab Tsereteli, sculpture in front of the Victory Monument [ ru] at Victory Park [ ru], Moscow, 1995 In the 16th century, Giorgio Vasari, an Italian painter, wrote the following about Saint George by Donatello; Life itself seems to be stirring vigorously within the stone. And to be sure no modern statues have the vivacity and spirit produced by nature and art, through the hand of Donatello in this marble. Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 12, 41-42, color repro.

As governments were being overthrown all over continental Europe, the island of Gozo was experiencing a very different ‘revolution a revolution in artistic ideas. Mattia Preti, St George triumphant over the dragon, 1678, at St. George's Basilica, Malta in Victoria, Gozo.Incidentally, the St. George was not the only statue that Donatello produced for a niche in the Orsanmichele. He also sculpted the St. Mark for the linen drapers guild of Florence, an equally beautiful and meticulously crafted work of art. Austria: Pitten, Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, Sankt Georgen an der Leys, Sankt Georgen an der Stiefing, Sankt Georgen im Attergau, Sankt Georgen ob Murau. Charles Clermont-Ganneau, "Horus et Saint Georges, d'après un bas-relief inédit du Louvre". Revue archéologique, 1876.

Theodore is reported as having destroyed a dragon near Euchaita in a legend not younger than the late 9th century. St. George's bravery and fearlessness were celebrated along with his subsequent conversion of the entire town of Silene to Christianity. The townspeople were won over by St. George's skill and strength and believed he must be divinely favored to be able to slay the dragon that had killed and devoured so many other men. The Orsanmichele was a granary-turned-church, dedicated to and used by Florence’s trade guilds. In 1499, the city mandated that the guilds commission statues of their patron saints to fill the 14 niches in the church’s facade. Recognizing an opportunity for public one-upmanship, the guilds brought in the best sculptors in Florence and beyond, including Verrocchio, Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello. At this time Donatello was roughly mid-career—a respected sculptor but still in the shadow of the Florentine titan Ghiberti. The senior artist won the commissions for expensive bronze sculptures from the wealthiest guilds: foreign cloth merchants, wool merchants and bankers, while Donatello was left with cheaper marble commissions from so-called middle and minor guilds. It was one such minor guild, the Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai, or Guild of Armorers and Swordsmiths, who commissioned Saint George. Loomis, C. Grant, 1949. White Magic, An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend (Cambridge: Medieval Society of America)The legend and iconography spread rapidly through the Byzantine cultural sphere in the 12th century. It reached Western Christian tradition still in the 12th century, via the crusades. The knights of the First Crusade believed that St. George, along with his fellow soldier-saints Demetrius, Maurice, Theodore and Mercurius had fought alongside them at Antioch and Jerusalem. The legend was popularised in Western tradition in the 13th century based on its Latin versions in the Speculum Historiale and the Golden Legend. At first limited to the courtly setting of Chivalric romance, the legend was popularised in the 13th century and became a favourite literary and pictorial subject in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and it has become an integral part of the Christian traditions relating to Saint George in both Eastern and Western tradition. Saint George is sculptured as a young, brave, determined and strong man in armor. He is not standing in contrapposto, although his right leg is turned to the same angle as his shield, visibly his weight is on both legs. Even though he is fully clothed, there is still the sense of a muscular body underneath. His right hand originally probably held some sort of a blade. Drill marks on his head indicate, that he probably also wore some kind of helmet or wreath. [5]

Lane, Barbara G. “Hans Memling: vita e opere.” In Memling: Rinasimento fiammingo, ed. Till-Holger Borchert. Exh. cat. Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2014-2015. Milan, 2014: 44-45, 51, nt. 33 and nt. 37, color fig. 6. (The NGA painting was not in the exhibition.) defeating a dragon came to be know through the collection of stories called the Golden Legend in the late thirteenth century.Housed today in Bargello, the figure exhibits a strong physical presence, bolstered by the shield that projects out of the physical space, adding to the indomitable image of a Where Donatello's style was groundbreaking and based on reality, Ghiberti adhered to the International Gothic style, which dictated highly stylized and "perfect" versions of flesh-and-blood individuals.