St George and the Dragon
German Sculptor, ca.1440-1509 1487 Painted wood Storkyrkan, Stockholm This sculptor and painter, whose presence at L?beck is documented from 1467 onwards, is the greatest medieval artist from the Hanseatic region. Notke is traditional in his feeling for complex composition, but a vigorous innovator in the individual qualities that he brings to the concentration of action and of figures. This terrifying confrontation of Heaven and Hell is his greatest achievement. One of the numerous works that he carved for Scandinavian towns, it was commissioned by the Swedish authorities for the national sanctuary to commemorate the victory over the Danes at Brukeberg on St. George's Day, 1471
Painting ID:: 62413
1811 Oil on wood, 28 x 21 cm Stedelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt Pforr's short life was overshadowed by illness and depression and this is evident in this painting. The combatants are self-sufficient, in a way that is quite out of keeping with a struggle; only the large and penetrating eye of the horse takes up contact with the viewer. This is a fight without effort, as if the knight were dreaming his own experience in a lethargy remote from time
Painting ID:: 62816
Franz Pforr 1811(1811)
Medium Oil on wood
cyf St George and the Dragon German
1788-1812
He received his earliest training from his father, the painter Johann Georg Pforr (1745-98), and his uncle, the art professor and first inspector of the painting gallery in Kassel, Johann Heinrich Tischbein the younger (1742-1808). In 1805 he became a student at the Akademie der Bildenden Kenste in Vienna, which was dominated by the severe Neo-classicism of its director, Heinrich Feger; he was taught by Hubert Maurer (1738-1818), Franz Cauzig (1762-1828) and Johann Martin Fischer. During the war with France in 1805, Pforr volunteered as a guard in the Vienna militia. He suffered a nervous breakdown, brought on by the conflict between his passionate longing for a contemplative life and a desire to see military action. He probably turned to religion to help sustain his mental equilibrium. In 1806 he resumed his academic studies and, believing himself destined to become a battle painter, made numerous drawings of historical battles, for example his still schoolish and baroquely composed Wallenstein in the Battle of L?tzen (1806; Frankfurt am Main, Stedel. Kstinst. & St?dt. Gal.). However, it was not until 1807, with Drawing with Twelve Travel Sketches (Frankfurt am Main, Stadt- & Ubib.), that he first began to overcome his beginner style and to develop his own. This resulted in reduced detail, simplified continuous contours, a structuring by means of planar rather than illusionistic criteria, a new clarity of vision and a chastened balance between nature and artistic conception.
