ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Saint George as an inspiration for artists, enabling them to promote their skills and status. The chapter is organised around claims that demonstrate the malleability of Saint George and put him at the forefront of artistic self-fashioning. The first section develops the claim that he was used by artists as a medium for experimentation in print techniques in such a way that was not possible with other saints, and charts the development of the chiaroscuro print under Maximilian. The second section elucidates how Saint George was used by artists as a vehicle for exploring their identity. Albrecht Dürer is held up as a case study of an artist who gained an increased status and utilised Saint George in his own image creation. The final section of the chapter considers how the figure of Saint George enabled artists to display their knowledge of other art, both contemporary and antique and Pietro Torrigiano, an Italian artist at an English court, is used as a case study here. All three regions – England, the German-speaking territories and the Italian peninsula – are discussed.
