Byzantine
Icon of Saint George (the "Black George") Icon of Saint George (the "Black George"), late 14th Century, tempera, gesso on linden (?) panel, 77.4 x 57 cm (British Museum, London) Speakers: Pippa Couch and Rachel Ropeik
⇐ Use this menu to view and help create subtitles for this video in many different languages.
You'll probably want to hide YouTube's captions if using these subtitles.
- [music]
- Pippa Couch: We're in the British Museum and we're looking at the Black George icon which is from about 1400 to 1450
- Rachel Ropeik: So this is a Russian icon
- and you can see there is a bit of Cyrillic writing up there saying "George"--who this is
- --and there are lots of images of St. George around
- --anytime you see images of a knight on horseback stabbing a dragon usually with a big long spear
- --sometimes he's saving a princess--that's St. George but there's no princess here
- Pippa: No it's more of a distilled version--also we're used to seeing him though in knights--metal armor
- Rachel: And yet he doesn't look like a knight here
- --he looks like he's just kind of wearing a nice little tunic and a very flowy cape and some nice bright red tights
- Pippa: Yeah--there's nothing particularly that's going to protect him
- Rachel: But what we do see because of that very neatly composed billowy red cape is his halo
- --there are little bits of gold left on the circle around his head
- --and that's how we know that he's not just any old man
- riding through the country side killing a dragon like you do
- --he's St. George
- Pippa: And the fact that they put the cape flowing up like that
- --that's definitely a purposeful compositional point that they want to highlight the halo--don't they
- --and they draw attention to it--that cape drags your eye up to the halo and across to the name
- --the inscription "George"
- Rachel: Because sometimes we see icons with whole gold background
- but we don't here because this wasn't a scene that took place in heaven
- --illuminated by the light of heaven which is what the gold does
- Pippa: And it's earthly--he's on ground--there's a horizon there which you would never normally see
- Rachel: Now the other thing that I'm struck by is the big black horse
- --it's called the "Black George Icon" and usually you think of George on white horse
- Pippa: And that's interesting because again this is byzantine icon
- and the white horse is often associated with crusader art so it's often with Western ideas of St. George
- --and don't forget that the Crusades came through--they stayed in Constantine for a bit
- --and they said, "We're going to go on and fight in the Holy Land," but they were very jealous of everything Constantinople had
- and while they were there were like, "While we're here we're just going to sack and take everything."
- --and they ruled there for 50 years so if the West associated St. George with a white horse
- and crusader triumpant sort of attitude--the byzantine world obviously doesn't see that in that same way
- --it's very unusual though--there are a few more in existence
- but they are very very rare
- Rachel: Your eye is kind of drawn down there's this long thin diagonal red line of George's spear
- --it doesn't really look very strong--it's modern St. George killing the dragon with a laser
- --but there is that dragon and it kind of looks like a big snake all coiled up down at the bottom
- Pippa: It's definitely coiled up on itself--looks like it's knotted around it's tail
- --almost going to eat it's own tail there--struggling
- --but the moment of death hasn't happened yet--has it?
- --he's frozen in that moment of just about to impale him--just about to succeed
- --and it's interesting because often in Western art they are commenting about George
- as the knight in the armor and the clothes
- --and he's physical--his personal ability to overcome the dragon
- --and in byzantine art they're saying, "George is good and that the dragon is evil"
- --and it's this continual struggle that we're all having all the time
- of trying to overcome falsehood and evil
- --so he would never have actually had a dead dragon at his feet because that would mean "it's finished--we're done"
- --but it's not--it's an eternal struggle for all of humankind
- Rachel: Because he's of course put that dragon almost completely buried in the lower register
- below that line of the landscape horizon that you see
- --and George and the horse with the exception a couple of feet is totally above in the realm of the sky
- Pippa: Emphasizing upper realm--upper register and the earthly temporality of the dragon on the bottom
- --and the horse is extremely elegant--those lines and the legs that are splayed out
- in such a beautiful way and it really fills the icon of George from left to right
- --this icon actually has a very interesting story because it was found being used as a shutter on a barn in a village in northern Russia
- --and it was actually a different painting at the time--it had some 18th century painting on top
- --and they took that off and found a 17th century painting underneath
- --and they cleaned it again--and were like "WHHAAAOO look we've got this 1400 St. George"
- --and so we're really really lucky to have this here to marvel over today
- --the continual struggle that George is doing and that we are doing
- [music]
Be specific, and indicate a time in the video:
At 5:31, how is the moon large enough to block the sun? Isn't the sun way larger?
|
Have something that's not a question about this content? |
This discussion area is not meant for answering homework questions.
Discuss the site
For general discussions about Khan Academy, visit our Reddit discussion page.
Flag inappropriate posts
Here are posts to avoid making. If you do encounter them, flag them for attention from our Guardians.
abuse
- disrespectful or offensive
- an advertisement
not helpful
- low quality
- not about the video topic
- soliciting votes or seeking badges
- a homework question
- a duplicate answer
- repeatedly making the same post
wrong category
- a tip or feedback in Questions
- a question in Tips & Feedback
- an answer that should be its own question
about the site
Share a tip
Suggest a fix
Have something that's not a tip or feedback about this content?
This discussion area is not meant for answering homework questions.