Countryside of Wood with Saint George Fighting the Dragon

Saint George was often the subject of Renaissance art but this painting is special—the hero and the defeated dragon are hardly visible, covered by the dense forest. Before the sixteenth century, landscape elements in European paintings were invariably secondary to figures constituting the primary subject matter. German painter Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480-1538) approached the idea that the forest itself might be worthy of being the focal point and capable of expressing meaning in its own right.