Today is the transferred Solemnity of St George.
Few saints beyond Our Lady and the Apostles have attracted so many commissions to artists as St George. This was particularly so in the medieval and renaissance eras and, such was popular devotion to him that images of him occur right across Europe. For artists themselves St George offered great possibilities as an armoured man on horseback in icons, panel and wall paintings, carvings in teo and tree dimensions, and in books of devotion. Occasionally he appears without either horse or dragon, as in one of the most famous of all statues of St George, that carved by Donatello in 1415-17 for the Orsanmichele in Florence.
Image: italianrenaissance.org
There is a good introduction to the statue, its history and losses - a metal sword, helmet and belt given by the Armourers guild who commissioned it to depict their patron ( and possibly to advertise their wares - ‘You too can look and feel like St George ….’ ) on Wikipedia at Saint George (Donatello)
There are other useful and more detailed online articles about the statue at St. George and at Donatello’s St. George
I have seen the point made that the Saint is shown in a design of armour that is s hybrid between classical Roman times and that of the contemporary early fifteenth century. Antiquarism and actuality are combined to create an archetype.
It looks to me that Donatello used the same model he used for his first, and far less well known, marble statue of David from 1408 - the faces have the same elements of strong youthful resolve moderated by a suggestion of uncertainty with a slightly furrowed brow. Be he a late Roman or an early renaissance Florentine he is a determined young man.
St George Pray for us
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