An Icon of St George

Today is the feast of the martyr St George, who is honored with particular solemnity among the Greeks. This very nice icon of stories of his life was painted by an anonymous artist of the Cretan school sometime in the first half of the 18th century; it is now at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The central panel shows the classic story from St George’s legend of him slaying the dragon; the twelve panels around it depict various episodes of his martyrdom.

In the central panel, George kills the dragon which had long terrorized a town in Libya called Sylene (or “Silena” in the Golden Legend). In the background on the right, the king and citizens watch from the battlements of a fortress; on the opposite side, the king’s daughter (dressed in red), who had been scheduled to be fed to the dragon, is seen running from the scene.

Perched on the horse behind St George is a young man called Amiras, who is holding a wine jug. According to a much later legend, he was a boy captured by Saracens from the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, and brought to Crete as to serve as a cupbearer of the Muslim princes who ruled over the island. Amiras prayed to George to deliver him from his captivity, and one day, as he was in the middle of serving at table, the Saint appeared to him, picked him up and set him on his horse, then rode over the sea to bring him back home to his mother.

On the top section are the first three episodes of the Saint’s passion: he is brought before the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, the agitators of the last great Roman persecution, in their capital of Nicomedia; he is led away to his punishment by two soldiers; a stone slab is laid on top of him to crush him to death. As is so often the case in the stories of the martyrs, the world refuses to cooperate with the persecutors, and everything they do that doesn’t involve them personally attacking the Saint (drowning, burning, throwing them off a cliff) fails. The wicked are in this way forced to assume responsibility for their actions.

The narration then goes back and forth from one side of the central panel to the other. The next image is composited out of these two sections.

At the upper left, St George is tormented on the wheel; upper right, he is comforted by an angel. Center left, he appears again before Diocletian; center right, he is submerged in quicklime, which again, does not work. Lower left, he is beaten with rods; lower right, he revives the dead ox of a farmer... 

and then in the first panel of the lower section, he revives a dead man. In the central panel, George refuses to adore an idol which is perched on top of a column, (and not easy to see); at last, he is slain by the sword.