NOTKE, Bernt

This altarpiece was dedicated on Easter Sunday 1479 and is one of Denmark’s great treasures. The altarpiece is unusual in that it has movable sections, so different scenes may be viewed during the liturgical calendar.

This panel is part of the altarpiece carved by the famous L�beck sculptor and painter Bernt Notke. It was dedicated on Easter Sunday 1479 and is one of Denmark’s great treasures. The altarpiece is unusual in that it has movable sections, so different scenes may be viewed during the liturgical calendar.

Bernt Notke’s St George and the Dragon celebrates Sweden’s victory over Christian I, King of Denmark and Norway (r. 1448-81) at the Battle of Brunkeberg in 1471, but it also served briefly as a funerary monument. Sten Sure, governor of Sweden and leader of the revolt against Denmark, credited the intercession of St George for this triumph. Sture and others ordered an over-life-size equestrian sculpture of the saint by Bernt Notke of L�beck for the Holy Cross altar in Stockholm’s main church as victory memorial.

Notke represented St George fighting a ferocious dragon. The ground is littered with human skulls and other remains of its victims. Baby dragons peer out of holes in the earth. Having impaled the beast with his lance, George prepares to strike with his sword. At that instant, his horse rears up in pain as the dragons’s claw pieces its stomach. Yet because of his Christian faith, the valiant knight is victorious. He rescues the king’s daughter and converts everyone.

This sculptor and painter, whose presence at L�beck is documented from 1467 onwards, is the greatest medieval artist from the Hanseatic region. Notke is traditional in his feeling for complex composition, but a vigorous innovator in the individual qualities that he brings to the concentration of action and of figures. This terrifying confrontation of Heaven and Hell is his greatest achievement. One of the numerous works that he carved for Scandinavian towns, it was commissioned by the Swedish authorities for the national sanctuary to commemorate the victory over the Danes at Brukeberg on St. George’s Day, 1471.