Vittore Carpaccio
St. George Killing the Dragon

It's the crucial moment! Saint George heads straight towards the dragon and pierces the monster's throat with his lance. The danger to the city of Silena and its residents has passed, the Christian knight has triumphed. The remains of the dragon's earlier victims – humans and sheep alike – are still scattered across the ground. In the background on the right, huddled next to a tree and praying for a favourable outcome, is the princess, who was next in line to be sacrificed to the dragon.

Behind her, outside the gates of a substantial city, another legend from the Christian story of salvation is playing out. Clad in a red cloak, Saint Stephen is kneeling on the ground, about to be stoned to death. 

And on the left, two hermits have withdrawn into the towering rocky landscape: Saint Jerome and Saint Benedict of Nursia. It was an obvious reference, since Carpaccio was painting this monumental scene for the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, which followed the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Saint George is also the protagonist in the four small scenes at the bottom. They show the ordeals the saint underwent before he was finally beheaded in the year 303 – at least according to Christian legends.

As to how realistic the story of the heroic dragon-slayer actually is – who's to say. But the battle against evil continues to inspire artists to this day. Please turn around and look at the opposite wall – or at your screen. This is the contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei recreating Carpaccio's battle against the dragon – unmistakably, and yet hard to make out. Ai Weiwei mounted Lego bricks on aluminium and used this technique to, as it were, "pixelate" Carpaccio's masterpiece. Centuries-old fine brushwork meets contemporary digital aesthetics – but the main message remains the same: the importance of the battle of good against evil.