José Luis Mansanet Rives
Iconography is nothing more than the art of capturing in sculpture or painting the idea that one has of a saint., through symbols that characterize it and distinguish it from others, whose data has been obtained from real life, the legendary, or attributed by tradition, in such a way that we become familiar with them and recognize without further ado, immediately, such a saint.
The game of symbols or images has always been very apt for popular understanding and even more so in times when writing was not his strong suit..
The most popular iconography of Saint George, the best known worldwide is its equestrian representation. The image of warrior on horseback. It is what symbolizes you best, given that, although his life is one of the least known, ignoring specifically when and where he was born and died, It is known that he was a young officer of the Roman legions of Diocletian who, in the persecution decreed by said emperor, died beheaded as a martyr for Christ..
However, the palm of martyrdom is not what determines him, perhaps because it stands out for another quality attributable.
There are infant images of Saint George with the palm, as the Alcoyana from "El Xicotet", however, most infant representations, from the remotest antiquity they have not lacked a detail of a warrior, as in his church in the valley of Ihlara (Cappadocia 13th century), or in Titian's painting, with the Virgin (XIV century), where he is seen with the spear in his hand; or in the sculpture of Donatello (XV century), standing with a large shield; or in Mantegna's painting (XV century), infant who has the dragon at his feet.
I don't know of any other infant images, apart from that of "Xicotet" in Alcoy, in which the saint carries the palm of martyrdom, which is not to say that they do not exist.
Christian tradition links him to the fight against evil. He is a military saint., it is dominated by action, it is not conceived offering peace, if not through his fight against evil.
In Spanish literature, Cervantes and Lope de Vega echo the chivalrous fame of Saint George., as well as that of Santiago, y dice D. Quixote: "That gentleman (Saint George) he was one of the best andantes that the divine militia has ever had”… “these saints and gentlemen (includes Santiago) they profess what I profess to be the exercise of arms”… They were knights who are on eternal guard against Evil
In the traditional equestrian iconography of Saint George, therefore, two aspects are specified.: a) a gentleman, a warrior who fights in defense of the Good, b) a concretion of evil, against what is fought. And Good defeats Evil, which is what is symbolized.
The representation of the knight is normally invariable, on horseback and attacking with a spear. In the specific iconography of Alcoy, it is not a spear but a dart or arrow that he carries in his hand, what makes this representation very unique.
Yes, the representation of Evil has varied over time:
A) 10th-century cave paintings in Cappadocia depict him trampling and spearing a long, hulking snake, sometimes accompanied by the knight San Teodoro, and there is even a church, Yilanli, in the Goreme Valley, which is called Church of the Serpent. Perhaps in those times, to symbolize Evil, one was thinking of that biblical passage from Genesis in which it is said: "Nevertheless, the snake was the most cunning animal of all the animals there were"... (III-1) and was the inducer of Evil, what induced Eve to eat" "... the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"... In the Russian Byzantine icons of later centuries (XIV and XV) it is still the snake that symbolizes Evil at the feet of the horse.
B) As the legend of the princess and the dragon spread, collected in the compilation of lives of saints of the thirteenth century "The golden legend", Evil took on a more abstract material form as it did not correspond to any existing reality, a chimera materialized, the Dragon, imaginary animal to which the figure of a corpulent snake is attributed, with feet and wings. That representation made a fortune and is the best known worldwide to this day..
C) In Spain, what could be considered for centuries the summary of all evils was the Saracen invasion and the fight against it that, yes theoretically – concluded in 1492 –, It still lasted in the Spanish Mediterranean for at least three more centuries with Turkish-Barber piracy.
It is therefore not surprising that Santiago, the Patron Saint of Spain, was represented, especially after the battle of Clavijo (siglo IX?), on horseback with sword in hand, running over Moors and stepping on their heads. This is how Cervantes evokes it through the mouth of D. Quixote: “…that gentleman is called D. San Diego Matamoros, one of the bravest saints and knights that the world had and that heaven now has.".
The same thing happened in Huesca with San Jorge, proclaimed Patron of Aragon as a result of the battle of Alcoraz (a. 1096), where according to tradition he appeared in defense of Christians, for which reason he is represented there with heads of Saracens on the tip of the spear.
As well as with the iconography of Alcoy that, belatedly, in 1810, he begins to be represented attacking Moors as tradition says that he appeared on the walls of Alcoy in 1276, which was probably due to the boom reached by the Fiesta.
That evil materialized in the Saracens has disappeared, the iconography of Santiago suffers mutations, the Son of Thunder is represented rather with the shell and pilgrim's staff, what those who did the Camino de Santiago. And that of San Jorge Matamoros is on the path of transformation, becoming a knight and an infant, with no clear idea on how to represent Evil, or whether that idea that symbolizes the fight of Good against Evil should also be transformed, stripping him of warrior attributes.
D) A last evolution in the representation of Evil is the one carried out by the UN. at the monument to disarmament in front of its headquarters in New York (1990) where Saint George appears on horseback, cast with remnants of Soviet-American nuclear weaponry, with a spear topped by the cross – Christian symbol – that is cleaved in these remains of weapons. The sculpture is the work of Zurad Tserteli and has been baptized with the name "Good defeats Evil", where Evil has a very specific material representation, symbols of war.
The evolution of the representation of Evil may not have concluded, above all, identifying it in concrete evils, notwithstanding an Evil represented in abstract form, in an imaginative way it would never lose relevance or need transformations.