''Saint George and the Dragon'' is a painting by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

(c. 1605–07), based upon the motif with the same name. It was painted in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

(

Saint George Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldier ...

is the patron of this city) while Rubens was in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

to complete his artistic training on behalf of his mentor at the time, Otto van Veen. Many scholars speculate the work was originally commissioned for the Church of

Sant'Ambrogio Sant'Ambrogio may refer to the following entities in Italy: * Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, a church in the Milan * Sant'Ambrogio, Florence, a Roman Catholic church in Florence * Sant'Ambrogio di Torino, a municipality in the Turin * Sant'Ambrogio di ...

, which was dedicated to Saint George. If so, the commissioner never received the masterpiece, due to the artist holding on to his work until he died in 1640, where

Felipe IV Philip IV ( es, Felipe, pt, Filipe; 8 April 160517 September 1665), also called the Planet King (Spanish: ''Rey Planeta''), was King of Spain from 1621 to his death and (as Philip III) King of Portugal from 1621 to 1640. Philip is remembered f ...

procured the piece. It is now in the

Museo del Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Iconography

In the painting the princess represents the church as a whole, and the lamb she is grasping represents the innocence and purity of the church, and Saint George and his steed symbolize the triumph of good over evil as the Saint George stares the beast down from literally “on high”. To reiterate, Saint George's right foot prominently highlighted above the dragon signifies that the dragon (darkness, devil, evil) is in every way beneath Saint George and the light that envelops him and the princess. In opposition, the dragon's form, which very much resembles a serpent, rather than the typical lizard, or dinosaur-like depiction of dragons, an allegory to the classic tale of Adam and Eve, where in

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...

takes the form of a serpent.

Notes

External links

1600s paintings Paintings by Peter Paul Rubens in the Museo del Prado Horses in art Religious paintings Paintings of dragons Sheep in art Saint George and the Dragon {{17C-painting-stub