The Story
St. George Slaying the Dragon, 1500s. Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553). Woodcut; sheet: 16.2 x 12.7 cm (6 3/8 x 5 in.); mat size: 49 x 36.2 cm (19 5/16 x 14 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1948.298
Created in 1500 during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the portrait tradition. Lucas Cranach worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in woodcut, measuring Sheet: 16.2 x 12.7 cm (6 3/8 x 5 in.); Mat Size: 49 x 36.2 cm (19 5/16 x 14 1/4 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Lucas Cranach builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
