Deciduous forest with Saint George
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| Deciduous forest with Saint George |
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| Albrecht Altdorfer , around 1510 |
| Oil on parchment (mounted on linden wood) |
| 28 × 22 cm |
| Old Pinakothek |
Deciduous Forest with Saint George is a painting by Albrecht Altdorfer from 1510 and shows a scene from the legend of Saint George killing the dragon . The 28 cm x 22 cm picture, painted with oil paint on parchment and mounted on linden wood, belongs to the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (Inv.-No. WAF 2). An alternative title is the dragon fight of St. George .
Content and technology
The picture shows in the lower quarter the black armored saint on a white horse and next to it a rather inconspicuous red dragon. The horse is frightened at the monster, which Georg is staring at with his lance lowered. Most of the remaining space is filled with foliage; in the lower right half of the picture the forest thins out and reveals a landscape with fields and mountains. The small-format picture is painted in oil on parchment; such a combination is quite unusual. Altdorfer uses the Alla Prima technique, known since the 16th century , which dispenses with layered structure, i.e. underpainting and glaze , only the yellow-green leafy scrolls are painted in the dark and the highlights are heightened.
History and interpretation
Since the beginning of the 16th century, depictions of landscapes have become more and more important and religious / mythological motifs take a back seat. Altdorfer also seems to have preferred depicting nature. He also chooses a forest as the setting and not the place in front of a cave or a lake, his Georg also meets the dragon, but does not kill him. Finally, the king's daughter Margaret, whom the saint saves, is missing. Altdorfer's decision to move the scene to a forest could partly be traced back to the Legenda aurea : there the threatened city of Silena and its inhabitants is called Silenen . This is likely a reinterpretation of the forest-dwelling formerly Centaur similar elemental spirits of Satyroi and Silenoi be, since the 4th century, the forest also God Silenus known, the teacher of Dionysius .
The fact that George does not fight the dragon, but looks at it rigidly, can be a reference to the Greek dragon-slayer myth of Kadmos , because in it a fatal prophecy is uttered: In the Metamorphoses of Ovid it is told that Jupiter in the form of a white bull Europe , the daughter of Agenor. King Agenor now sent his son Kadmos and ordered him to return only when he had found Europe. After a long and unsuccessful search, the exile took possession of the untouched land of Boeotia as a new home. In a dense forest, he stabbed a giant snake from Mars that had previously killed his servants.
While the victor was looking at the room of the enemy
conquered , Scholl suddenly heard a call - it was not possible to recognize from tubs;
But he shouted -: “What are you looking at, son of Agenor, the serpent that
you kill? You too will soon be seen as a snake. "
In fact, at the end of his life, Kadmos is turned into a snake along with his wife Harmonia .
The dragon slaying legend of Georg
Jacobus de Voragine reports in his Legenda aurea that a dragon lived in Libya near the city of Silena in a sea-sized lake. When the townspeople went out to kill him, the dragon came as far as the city walls and killed many with its poisonous breath. In order to appease the monster, the residents decided to sacrifice two sheep a day and when the animals became scarce, one sheep and one human. One day the lot fell on the virgin king's daughter. The ruler wanted to refuse this, but the people threatened to set fire to their castle for it. The king's daughter was brought to a rock on the lake shore where her fate was to await. There Georg, of Cappadocian origin, rode past, to whom she told everything. Despite her urgent warnings, Georg decided to kill the monster. When it crawled out of the lake, he rode towards it and made it harmless for the time being with a lance prick. Now the king's daughter put her belt around the monster's neck at the behest of George and led it into the city. The townspeople fled in panic, but Georg offered to kill the dragon if everyone was baptized. After 20,000 residents, not counting women and children, were baptized, Georg killed the monster with the sword and ordered the carcass to be removed from the city. This took four pairs of oxen . The king had a church built in honor of Our Lady and George, from whose altar a healing spring gushed. George himself, however, had all of the king's gifts given to the poor and instructed him to protect the church and priests, to hear the Holy Mass and to give alms to the poor. Then he rode away.
Voragine then mentions another version, according to which Georg killed the dragon immediately when it attacked the king's daughter.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Historical Lexicon of Bavaria , article “Danube style”, section “Albrecht Altdorfer: Drachenkampf des Sankt Georg” (viewed June 12, 2010)
- ↑ Anita Albus - The Art of the Arts. Memories of Painting , Eichborn Verlag 1997 p. 170
- ↑ a b Die Kunst der Künste p. 169f.
- ↑ Ovid 's Metamorphoses 3.1 to 130
- ↑ Ovid Metamorphoses 3.95-98
- ^ A b Jacobus de Voragine: Die Legenda Aurea (translation by Richard Benz ). Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007, 15th edition ISBN 978-3-579-02560-5 p. 232ff Chapter By Sanct Georg