Dragonslayer

Hans von Marées painted 'Dragonslayer' in 1880, a period when he was working in Florence and Rome at the height of his formal experimentation with the human figure and mythological narrative. A dragonslayer — whether Perseus, Siegfried, or Saint George — is one of the most ancient heroic archetypes in European culture, representing the conquest of chaos and the protection of the vulnerable. Von Marées was not a painter of literary subjects in the conventional sense; he was deeply sceptical of anecdotal or literary painting, seeking instead a pure formal language rooted in the human body's inherent expressive power. His dragonslayer is therefore less a narrative illustration than a study in physical force and monumental figure composition. Von Marées was closely associated with the art theorist Konrad Fiedler and the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, whose writings on pure form and visual perception directly influenced his approach. The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin holds this work, which reflects the institution's sustained commitment to collecting the Deutschrömer painters.

Von Marées constructs the figure with the structural solidity characteristic of his mature style, prioritising form and mass over surface detail or atmospheric effect. The palette is warm and earth-toned, with deep shadows reinforcing the physical weight of the figure. His technique at this period involved multiple preparatory stages and frequent revisions, giving the paint surface a dense, layered quality.