Dragons in Wester Art
Written by Teresita Blanco (The Artsy Sister)
The first western dragon was the Primordial Goddess of Chaos Tiamat. She was defeated by the God Marduke. He strung up her body over the sky. The rain is her blood.
You can see the initial traces of the traditional Western Dragon. It has the wings, the horns and the 4 legs. The tail is bird like and so is her feathery body. In the Greek times, the dragons got quite varied. They became more associated with reptiles, like snakes.
The Greeks created the cliché of the damsel in distress taken by the dragon or monster. In medieval times, only Bible dragons or saints dragons got depicted. St. George rose into the foreground.
He was the original dragon slayer. According to legend, St. George was a wondering Christian soldier from the late Roman times. He is depicted as a medieval knight, but the real George was a roman legionnaire. He got in trouble for converting to Christianity.
Anyhow, he arrived to a town being terrorized by a dragon. At first, the dragon chilled out after being fed 2 sheep per day. He eventually started to crave human flesh. George arrived into town before the King’s Daughter got sacrificed to the dragon. He killed the dragon and he was offered a reward.
St. George declined the price. He asked the King to give the money to the poor. This impressed the Kingdom enough to convert to Christianity. From the Renaissance to the Impressionist period, dragons were only depicted whenever St. George came to slay it.
The apocalypse dragon was the other dragon was also painted. After the industrial revolution, there was a shift in the depiction of dragons. This culminated in the 70s when Dungeons and Dragons came out. Dragons now were creatures to be admired.
Agents of the imagination. As homework, you should watch Flight of Dragons. It is my favorite Dragon movie. There is a video of this topic in my Artsy Sister Youtube channel. Please give a like and subscribe.
