Saint George and the Dragon

This is small enough to hold in two hands, painted by Raphael in his early twenties, before Rome and the great frescoes. In the Louvre it hangs near a matching little panel of Saint Michael, and the two were once kept together as a pair. George drives his lance down into the dragon while his white horse rears and twists, and the broken shaft tells you the first blow has already landed. Off to the left the princess he is rescuing hurries away. Raphael was working in Florence just then, watching Leonardo and Michelangelo closely, and you can feel it in the coiled energy of the horse. The whole violent moment is set in a calm green landscape that rolls back softly to a distant line of hills.