Saint George Struggling with the Dragon

Raphael, Saint George Struggling with the Dragon, 1505  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raphael_-_Saint_George_Fighting_the_Dragon.jpg


The Italin painter Raphael "Saint George Struggling with the Dragon" is a painting that describes and appends to the hagiography(study of a saint) of Saint George. The paiting is based upon amere legend of a story during medievial times and brought back to life during the Renassiance. The story is reallu quite simple. A dragon is sent to terrioze a village, so the villagers give him food in return to stop causing chaos upon them. Though the dragon continues unless food isn't given to him. Pretty soon the villagers then give the dragons their childrenone food becomes scares and this was through the form of a lottery. One day the emperor daughter is chossen in a lottery. the king pleads to the people that offer one of their own in return for riches. They just kinly reject his offer. The daughter was then sent to a bridge to be fed to the dragon, but on the way their Saint George occurs. He then promised the slay the dragon and rid of this chaos only if the people get baptized in the name of the lord. Once they did this he forcefully slays the dragon. 

 My opinion on the legend is that the people may have benn wicked in heart. I mean the adults gave up their children in behalf of their lives and so then the dragon respresenting the Devil was sent upon them. The people were then at the mercy of his hand, even the king himself. The Saint, basically a missonary, feels sorry for them and the princess and basically and slyly gets people to join his religion through the sense of reliving their sorrow. So now the great dragon is slayed and the whole town becomes Christian. The author is basically saying that in order to get away from chaos bestiwed upon the wicked you must condsent to become a Christian and person of God. The time of when this was written is very easy to interpret, because Christianity played a major role in Europe at the time, especially in the sense of the Crusades.

1)  Why do Raphael create his own painting of this legend?
2) Is the Dragon really represetation of a wicked being or spirit?
3) Does this painting really spread and benefits of becoming a Christian?

Race and Gender Critcism

  Gender and race has always been a critical topic in many aspects. Not just in terms of just jobs,  education, and government, but also in the aspects of art. Not everybody in past history has been given the chance to display their work of art in muesum or galleries. Women and people of color has been on the other, non- noiticng end when it comes to who's art gets displayed in muesums. The article clearly stated that in 1997 at a show of contemporary art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City included only 4 woman artists. There were 3 white women and one woman of color. The show exibit 72 artists artwork, but no artwork of men of color. Many people may think has oonly been a problem, but you can clearly see that this has recently happened. So has time go on I can truly hope that all forms of artwork that are from different types of people will be displayed or at least have a chanced to be in gallery.

Question:
-Why are women so marginlized when it comes to art?
-Why are the leaders of such museums not displaying other forms of art, yet they express that that is their main mission statement?

First Art Experience

  My first art experience was rather fun and exciting, yet very discomforting. When i was young, probably aorund the age of 3, i would always go over my cousins house. Now my cousins was in 1st grade, so he is quite a little bit older than me. My cousin loves art and will always have a 24 pack of crayons. I, however,  was still too young and was not allowed to use crayons, unless supervised. When no one was around I decided to become a little mischevious. I stole my cousin's crayons and then  decided, since there was no paper around, to express my motivation of art on the wall. My cousin was very furious when finding out. He though was placed upon the most trouble, because he should've beeen watching me. So, I got off easily.