Did another dude fighting dragon painting. The
first one was the Lambton Worm which I have yet to post on this blog- and this time I thought why not do St.
George and the Dragon. Mainly inspired by Joanna Newsom's song '81 where
she mentions it and it sounds all medievaly.
I knew about the story being basically an outrageous misappropriation by England allegedly since the crusades as their own. Usually images depicted of this story are done as an English knight in shining armor trampling down and jousting a tiny little black wyrm.
This time I tried to make it as Byzantine of an image I could make it. St. George as a historical person was supposed to have lived in the 3rd and 4th century in Byzantine so I tried to give him period armor. I tried to mimic the gold leaf paintings they had with simple red blue gold coloring (I used gold acrylic gouache).
Also the story is traditionally a metaphor for Christianity slaying the devil who the pagans believed as a deity and saving a virgin who probably represents the victims of paganism.
I wanted to simplify metaphor when making the image so I got rid of the woman entirely. Also the dragon is huge and looks dangerous instead of an ugly little varmint because that makes a better story. Why tell a story about someone doing something easy? Drawing it this way also gives a more gradual mix between early christian cultures and classical Greek and Roman culture which in my mind the Byzantine really represents.
So after all of that contextual blathering I have more introspective blathering:
I knew about the story being basically an outrageous misappropriation by England allegedly since the crusades as their own. Usually images depicted of this story are done as an English knight in shining armor trampling down and jousting a tiny little black wyrm.
This time I tried to make it as Byzantine of an image I could make it. St. George as a historical person was supposed to have lived in the 3rd and 4th century in Byzantine so I tried to give him period armor. I tried to mimic the gold leaf paintings they had with simple red blue gold coloring (I used gold acrylic gouache).
Also the story is traditionally a metaphor for Christianity slaying the devil who the pagans believed as a deity and saving a virgin who probably represents the victims of paganism.
I wanted to simplify metaphor when making the image so I got rid of the woman entirely. Also the dragon is huge and looks dangerous instead of an ugly little varmint because that makes a better story. Why tell a story about someone doing something easy? Drawing it this way also gives a more gradual mix between early christian cultures and classical Greek and Roman culture which in my mind the Byzantine really represents.
So after all of that contextual blathering I have more introspective blathering:
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This is sort of the approach I have for recent paintings. I don't know if I have the artistry to convey in just one image why I did everything like that. Is that important for the viewer to understand this?
Visually the image is probably mid-range in it's technical or compositional value which most viewers will immediately judge it upon. I should be able to get to a point as an artist where in the way I painted the image the viewer would know how I am trying to break norms and address misconceptions without 4 paragraphs of explanation.
How should I address this problem? What could I have done to convey what I was trying to do without ruining the image?
I feel that any more brute force about it the idea will lose tact.
Maybe I'm putting too much work on the particulars of each image without addressing worse problems in technique or composition. Or maybe I should try to convey new ideas of my own instead of addressing old ones?
Maybe I should just do what I want for fun. I could expand on sketchbook drawings like before in university. I did a pirate robot genie but is it worth that much effort in painting it meticulously? That idea as a joke is probably good enough as a sketch.
I think I'm lacking being surrounded by creative people with whom I can exchange critique and support. That's my fault. Dunno how to find them though.
I have lots to post on this blog though. It will fill the availability gap of my artwork from my website portfolio of my university work to date.
Stay tuned!
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