DONATELLO
(b. ca. 1386, Firenze, d. 1466, Firenze)

St George (detail)

c. 1416
Marble
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

On St George's face may be read the tension of the soldier alerted to imminent danger. The type of young Christian warrior is perhaps taken from Byzantine representations, but the head is principally inspired by Hellenistic models. It is marked, however, with the pent-up energy characteristic of all Donatello's works. This is not an individual portrait like the pitilessly realistic ones which the artist was to create later, but rather a youthful symbol of controlled energy, an ideal Quattrocento soldier type.