Bronze St. George the Dragon Slayer Statue

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Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 107. The saint is depicted in the style of a Roman cavalryman in the tradition of the " Thracian Heros." Donatello's skills amused all, as one could feel realism in his piece of work. Thinking themselves as the heirs to the goddesses of the Roman empire, the Florentines cherished the tribute the statue brought. Guild members and every citizen present valued the statue. Praise by Art Pundits

For its time, the St. George was revolutionary and very unique. Donatello possessed a fantastic ability to make bronze look like whatever he was sculpting - hair, clothing, etc. - and an admiration for the classical heroes of the old Roman Empire. Graf, Arturo, ed. (1878), Auberon (I complementi della Chanson d'Huon de Bordeaux I), Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari (10) (in Italian), Halle: M. Niemeyer, p.261 Warner-Johnson, Tim, and Jeremy Howard, eds. Colnaghi: Past, Present and Future: An Anthology. London, 2016: 64-65, color plate 9. There is no doubt that besides the 1678 titular altarpiece by Fra Mattia Preti showing a victorious St George standing next to his white stallion and crushing the dragon under his feet, the wooden statue of the martyr saint is the most precious treasure that the Victoria basilica can boast of. Like all of Donatello's works and the majority of biographical information about Donatello himself, there is very little information regarding how the St. George was initially received. However, it is known that the statue occupied its niche in the Orsanmichele for many years, and surely it would not have if it were not an honored and highly prized piece of art.Iconographic representations of St Theodore as dragon-slayer are dated to as early as the 7th century, certainly by the early 10th century (the oldest certain depiction of Theodore killing a dragon is at Aghtamar, dated c. 920). [7]

Zurab Tsereteli, sculpture in front of the Victory Monument [ ru] at Victory Park [ ru], Moscow, 1995 Depictions of "Christ militant" trampling a serpent is found in Christian art of the late 5th century. Iconography of the horseman with spear overcoming evil becomes current in the early medieval period. The nude figure of David is comparable to Donatello's St. George not because of its theme or composition but because of Michelangelo's similar commitment to realism in his work. Early depictions of a horseman killing a dragon are unlikely to represent St. George, who in the 10th century was depicted as killing a human figure, not a dragon. [8] Vinica ceramic icon of Saints Christopher and George as dragon-slayers Switzerland: Castiel, Kaltbrunn, Ruschein, Saint-George, Schlans, Stein am Rhein, Waltensburg/Vuorz.Marcus Canning and Christian de Vietri, Ascalon, abstract sculpture in front of St George's Cathedral, Perth, 2011 [36] Theodore is reported as having destroyed a dragon near Euchaita in a legend not younger than the late 9th century. Donatello's apprenticeship did not last long; he was eager for professional independence and at the age of 17 left his master to travel to Rome with architect Filippo Brunelleschi. The two maintained a lifelong friendly rivalry. Whatley, E. Gordon, editor, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch, 2004. St. George and the Dragon in the South English Legendary (East Midland Revision, c. 1400) Originally published in Saints' Lives in Middle English Collections ( on-line text: Introduction).

But while Carlos Martínez Álava, head of the historic heritage department, tells the Guardian’s Sam Jones that the statue “has the same colors [seen] before last year’s extremely unfortunate intervention,” the fact remains, he says, that “we’ve lost part of the original paint along the way.” Michener, James A. “Four Miracles—And A Masterpiece.” Reader’s Digest 89 (November 1966): 164, repro. is from the "Zoodochos Pigi" chapel in central Macedonia in Greece, in the prefecture of Kilkis, near the modern village of Kolchida, dated to the 9th or 10th century. [13] Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 58-60, repro.Saint George and the dragon has been depicted in the coat of arms of Moscow since the late 18th century, 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. It draws from pre-Christian dragon myths. The Coptic version of the Saint George legend, edited by E. A. Wallis Budge in 1888, and estimated by Budge to be based on a source of the 5th or 6th century, names "governor Dadianus," the persecutor of Saint George as "the dragon of the abyss," a greek myth with similar elements of the legend is the battle between Bellerophon and the Chimera. Budge makes explicit the parallel to pre-Christian myth:

Shearman, John. "A Drawing for Raphael's 'St. George'." The Burlington Magazine 125 no. 958 (January 1983): 15-25, fig. 23, 24. In the West, a Carolingian-era depiction of a Roman horseman trampling and piercing a dragon between two soldier saints with lances and shields was put on the foot of a crux gemmata, formerly in the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht (lost since the 18th c.). The representation survives in a 17th-century drawing, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. Cited by F. R. Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, 1979: 1:394, as documented in the Recueil des Stampes...dans le Cabinet du Roi..., Volume I, 1763: 13.The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 24-25, color repro. 13. Another interpretation claims that the statue stopped in Xewkija since this was the first church to be established as a parish outside the ancient walls of Gozo’s main town. Whatever the reason, the halt in Xewkija must have impressed the locals, since within a short time parish priest Nikola Vella commissioned the same Azzopardi to sculpt a statue of St John the Baptist for his parish; the statue of St John arrived in 1845.