Saint George and the Dragon

Notes from the museum

As a model of Christian knighthood, Saint George was a popular figure in the Middle Ages. Artists most frequently represented the episode from his legend in which he slays a dragon and rescues a beautiful princess set to be sacrificed to the beast. The Catalan painter Bernat Martorell included a wealth of detail in his version of the story. Animal and human bones litter the foreground. Lizards—or perhaps baby dragons—crawl around the opening of the dragon’s cave. The princess’s parents and throngs of onlookers crowd the town’s battlements to view the action. Martorell enlivened the physical surface of the painting as well: He richly modeled George’s halo and armor and the scaly body of the dragon with raised gesso decoration, and he gave granular texture to the depiction of the sandy foreground. Saint George and the Dragon was the central panel of an altarpiece devoted to the saint and was originally surrounded by four smaller narrative panels showing his martyrdom (now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris). Martorell probably painted the altarpiece for the chapel of the Barcelona palace of the government of Catalonia, a region whose patron is Saint George.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Bernat Martorell

Bernat Martorell was the leading painter of Barcelona, in modern-day Spain. He is considered to be the most important artist of the International Gothic style in Catalonia. Martorell painted retable panels and manuscript illuminations, and carved sculptures and also provided designs for embroideries.

Painter profile →