Saint George and the Dragon (Uccello)

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Saint George and the Dragon

Paolo Uccello, c. 1470

Oil on canvas

55.6 × 74.2 cm

National Gallery, London

Saint George and the Dragon is a painting by Paolo Uccello dating from around 1470. It is on display in the National Gallery, London.

Gothicizing tendencies in Paolo Uccello's art are nowhere more apparent than in this painting. It shows a scene from the famous story of Saint George and the dragon. On the right George is spearing the beast, and on the left the princess is using her belt as a leash to take the dragon up to the town.

The eye in the storm gathering on the right of Saint George is lined up with his spear showing there has been divine intervension. The strange patches of grass illustrate Uccello's obsessive concern with linear perspective and his tendency to create decorative pattern. The story is from a popular collection of saints' lives written in the 13th century, Jacopo da Varagine's Golden Legend.

An earlier less dramatic version of the same subject by the Italian artist is in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.

The painting is used as the basis for the U. A. Fanthorpe poem, Not My Best Side.