‘The Fight: St George Kills the Dragon VI’ by Edward Burne-Jones
Aesthetic Pre-Raphaelitism, armor, armour, art, artwork, chivalric tradition, chivalry, damsel, dragon, gallantry, George, knight, legend, Myles Birket Foster, myth, New South Wales, NSW, Pre-Raphaelite, Princess Sabra, St George, sword, The Hill, Witley.
This oil on canvas painting by well-known nineteenth-century artist Edward Burne-Jones was gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales by Arthur Moon. It is one of seven paintings from a ‘St George and the Dragon’ narrative cycle that Burne-Jones was commissioned to produce in 1864 for the dining room of Myles Birket Foster’s house, The Hill, in Witley, Surrey. Completed in 1866, this is the sixth painting in the series. It depicts an armoured St George slaying a reptilian looking dragon, while a female figure wearing a flowing white gown and a wreath of flowers - Princess Sabra from the legend - clasps her hands and watches tentatively from the sidelines. The deadly threat posed by the dragon, and by extension the valour of the knight in quashing it, is evident from the skull and broken lance lying in the foreground of the painting. Although the legend of St George slaying the dragon is Eastern in origin, it is thought to have been taken back to England by medieval crusaders, where it was incorporated into the chivalric tradition. As the patron saint of England, a champion of Christianity, and an exemplar of chivalric masculinity, St George was a popular subject for Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Burne-Jones, and for the Victorian medieval revival more generally.
Edward Burne-Jones
The Art Gallery of New South Wales
1866
The Art Gallery of New South Wales
Oil on Canvas, 105.4cm x 130.8cm
Vikingism Lecture
Costume, Denmark, horned helmet, lecture, Lego, Legoland, myth, Shane McLeod, Ring Cycle, shield, sword, University of Western Australia, UWA, Viking, Vikingism, Richard Wagner, Warrior
This photograph was taken during the final lecture of the 3rd year undergraduate unit The Vikings at The University of Western Australia. Although the unit focuses on the history of the Viking Age (c. 790-1100), the final lecture dealt with popular appropriations of the Vikings, or Vikingism, from the mid-nineteenth century. The lecture covered such topics as Wagner's Ring Cycle, novels, comics, art, music, and the recent films Thor and The Avengers. In the photograph the lecturer, Dr Shane McLeod, wears a t-shirt with an image of an unkempt warrior wearing a historically inaccurate horned helmet. Behind him is a slide showing a Lego Viking warrior with a sword and shield and also wearing a horned helmet from the Viking display at Legoland in Denmark, demonstrating that the horned helmet myth is also popular in Scandinavia where the Vikings originated.
McEwan, Joanne
31 May 2012
No Copyright
Digital Photograph; JPEG
Statue of St. George, Kryal Castle, Ballarat
Kryal Castle, castle, crenelation, drawbridge, gate, Kryal Castle, moat, porticullis, Keith Ryall, tourism, tower, battlements, leisure, recreation, re-creation, entertainment, functions, Ballarat, Melbourne, VIC, Victoria, St George, St. George, Saint George, saint, saints, figures, figure, statue, statues, Christian, Christianity, religion, religious, chivalry, chivalric tradition, chivalric, knight, knights, legend, myth, mythology, dragon, dragons, armour, horse
<p>An image of the large statue of St. George located inside Kryal Castle, a tourist attraction near Ballarat in Victoria. The figure is atop a horse in full metal armour. At the foot of the statue are plaques describing the legend of 'St. George and the Dragon.'</p>
<p>For more on the St George legend in Australia, see Andrew Lynch, “‘Thingless names’? The St George Legend in Australia”, The La Trobe Journal, vol.81, Autumn 2008, pp.40-52: <a href="http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html" target="_blank">http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html</a>).</p>
<p><strong>About Kryal Castle:</strong></p>
<p>Built in 1972 by Keith Ryall, Kryal Castle is described as ‘Australia’s unique medieval castle.’ As well as functioning as a tourist attraction, the castle can be hired for weddings, conferences, functions, and special events. Its medieval architectural features include crenellation, a moat, and a defended gate with flanking towers, drawbridge and a porticullis.</p>
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Jeffrey, N.
2007
N. Jeffrey
Digital photograph; JPEG
How Sir Bedivere cast the Sword Excalibur into the Water
art, Arthur, Arthurian, Arthuriana, legend, legends, myth, mythology, Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), Avalon, death, Excalibur, illustration, J.M. Dent & Sons, king, knight, lake, Le Morte d’Arthur, SA, Sir Bedivere, South Australia, sword, Thomas Malory, wounded king
This work was gifted to the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1960 by Mrs R.A. Haste. It is a line-block reproduction on paper depicting a scene from Thomas Malory’s fifteenth-century canonical Arthurian text Le Morte d’Arthur. Following the battle at Barnham Down where Arthur is mortally wounded, he commands Sir Bedivere (at this point the only knight left standing) to take his sword Excalibur to the water and cast it in, and then to return and tell him what he has seen. Sir Bedivere twice takes the sword to the waterside but hides it rather than throw it to waste. Upon his return he tells Arthur that nothing unusual transpired when he threw the sword in and Arthur knows he is lying. On his third visit he casts the sword into the water, and a hand appears from the water to grab hold of it. Sir Bedivere afterwards takes Arthur to the lake, where a barge appears to take him to Avalon. The work was created by Aubrey Beardsley for a nineteenth-century illustrated edition of Le Morte d’Arthur, which was issued in 12 parts between 1893 and 1984 by London publisher J.M. Dent & Sons.
Beardsley, Aubrey
Art Gallery of South Australia
c. 1873
Art Gallery of South Australia
Hyperlink
St George and the Dragon Altar, St George’s Cathedral, Perth, WA
altar, Anglican, Anglicanism, Anglican Cathedral, carving, Cathedral, chivalric tradition, chivalry, combat, battle, crusades, dragon, Eucharist service, Golden Legend, hagiography, Jacobus de Voragine, jarrah, knight, legend, myth, mythology, nave, nave altar, Perth, saint, saints, Speculum Historiale, St George, St George and the Dragon, Saint George, St George’s Cathedral, sword, Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190-1264), WA, Western Australia
<p>Close-up image of the jarrah nave altar at St George’s Cathedral in Perth, Western Australia. The altar features a hand-carved knight and dragon against a St George shield to portray the St George legend. It was carved by Robin McArthur and installed in the Cathedral in 1991. The addition of this new altar at the head of the nave enabled the Eucharist service to be conducted closer to, and facing, the laity. Continuing the traditional associations of Christianity with military service that are present throughout the Cathedral, the image of St George as an armoured knight has the effect of, as Andrew Lynch has suggested, conflating piety and prowess in a positive way.</p>
<p>The legend of St George slaying the dragon is Eastern in origin. It is thought to have been brought back to England by crusaders and was popularised and incorporated into hagiographies of St George in the medieval period in works such as Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale and Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend (c.1260). As with most Australian images of St George and the Dragon, the image features the knight and dragon in combat, and there is no sign of the maiden who was being saved in the original tale. For more on the St George legend in Australia, see Andrew Lynch, “‘Thingless names’? The St George Legend in Australia”, The La Trobe Journal, vol.81, Autumn 2008, pp.40-52: <a href="http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html" target="_blank">http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html</a>).</p>
Lynch, Andrew
21 May 2004
No Copyright
Digital Photograph; JPEG
Medieval in the Modern World
Arthur, Arthurian, Beowulf, Jorge-Luis Borges, Robert Bresson, cinema, fantasy, mythology, myth, legend, legends, myths, films, film, Neil Gaiman, John Gardner, Guy Gavriel Kay, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, literature, Andrew Lynch, Monty Python, Perth, poetry, Randolph Stow, Alfred Tennyson, Mark Twain, UWA, university, universities, University of Western Australia, WA, Western Australia, Robert Zemeckis
A second and third year undergraduate unit taught at The University of Western Australia. The unit was created by Andrew Lynch and features novels, poetry and film from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries that reinterpreted medieval literature and themes. Texts include Tennyson’s ‘The Passing of Arthur’, the film ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, Twain’s ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’, Gardner’s ‘Grendel’, the Zemeckis/Gaiman film ‘Beowulf’, poetry by Borges, Hill, and Heaney, Bresson’s ‘Lancelot du Lac’, and Gavriel Kay’s ‘A Song for Arbonne’. Of particular note is the inclusion of works by Australian authors: Kate Forsyth’s ‘Morgan of the Fay’, Maggie Hamilton’s ‘Merlin’, Juliet Mariller’s ‘Son of the Shadows’, ‘The Girl Green as Elderflower’ by Randolph Stow, and Jules Watson’s ‘The White Mare’.
Lynch, Andrew
The University of Western Australia
The University of Western Australia
February 2009
Andrew Lynch, the University of Western Australia
Link to UWA Undergraduate Handbook
English
St George Statue, St George’s Cathedral, Perth, Western Australia.
Anglican, Anglicanism, Anglican Cathedral, cathedral, religion, religious, carving, Cathedral, chivalric tradition, dragon, hagiography, knight, knights, knighthood, legend, myth, mythology, Oberammergau, Perth, saint, saints, Saint George, St. George, dragon, St George, St George and the Dragon, St George’s Cathedral, statute, WA, Western Australia, Christian, Christianity
Images of the St George woodcarved statue in St George’s Cathedral, Western Australia. The statue was purchased from Oberammergau in 1970. Oberammergau is a town in Bavaria known for its woodcarvers and, perhaps more famously, it’s production of a passion play. The legend of St George slaying the dragon is Eastern in origin. It is thought to have been brought back to England by crusaders, where it was incorporated into the chivalric tradition. For more on the St George legend in Australia, see Andrew Lynch, “‘Thingless names’? The St George Legend in Australia”, The La Trobe Journal, vol.81, Autumn 2008, pp.40-52: <a href="http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html" target="_blank">http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html</a>).
Lynch, Andrew
12 March 2008
Photographed with permission of the Dean, St George's Cathedral
Digital Photograph; JPEG
Statue of St George, St George’s Cathedral, Perth, Western Australia.
Anglican, Anglicanism, Anglican Cathedral, cathedral, Christian, Christianity, religion, religious, carving, Cathedral, chivalric tradition, dragon, hagiography, knight, legend, myth, mythology, Oberammergau, Perth, saint, saints, St George, Saint George, St. George, St George and the Dragon, St George’s Cathedral, statute, WA, Western Australia
Images of the St George woodcarved statue in St George’s Cathedral, Western Australia. The statue was purchased from Oberammergau in 1970. Oberammergau is a town in Bavaria known for its woodcarvers and, perhaps more famously, it’s production of a passion play. The legend of St George slaying the dragon is Eastern in origin. It is thought to have been brought back to England by crusaders, where it was incorporated into the chivalric tradition. For more on the St George legend in Australia, see Andrew Lynch, “‘Thingless names’? The St George Legend in Australia”, The La Trobe Journal, vol.81, Autumn 2008, pp.40-52: <a href="http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html" target="_blank">http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-81/t1-g-t4.html</a>).
Lynch, Andrew
12 March 2008
Photographed with permission of the Dean, St George’s Cathedral
Digital Photograph; JPEG