MASP

As with the battle theme, that of Saint George and the Dragon is exceedingly attractive to the artist who features it repeatedly. The oil painting of the Masp Collection, St. George and the Dragon, exhibited at the Pinacoteca do Estado along with another ten of the same theme, is one of the most elaborate versions of the theme. Generally speaking, it can be seen as a variation of the broader battle theme. Like this latter, it entails a large dose of artistic-historic memory, inevitably evoking the work of Uccello, and thus, the strong connotations stemming from the wealth of this iconography in the history of Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries. But above all, like the battle theme, the theme of Saint George brings up the same type of subversion of the classical tradition suggested by the artist in his Battles. It is interesting to note, especially here, De Fiori’s wealth of compositive invention which surprisingly varies the triad – man, horse, dragon – organization to which such iconography is reduced.

— Unknown authorship, 1998