A. G. DORSCHNER

ST. MICHAEL DEFEATING THE DRAGON

A. G. DORSCHNER
active 1930–1955 in Austria

Ink on paper
43.5 × 30 cm / 17.1 × 11.8 in

A striking and highly decorative composition, this ink drawing by A. G. Dorschner consciously roots itself in the visual language of medieval graphic art.

The Archangel Michael stands in triumph over the dragon, his elongated body defined by a bold, emphatic contour reminiscent of late Gothic woodcuts. The circular Latin inscription — “VICTORIA PRAECLARISSIMA EXCELSIS DEO” (“The most glorious victory to God in the highest”) — frames the figure with emblematic clarity, transforming the image into a unified devotional statement.

The sharp linearity, compressed space, and sculptural weight of the archangel reveal a deliberate historicising intent. This is not an imitation of the past, but a 20th-century reinterpretation of medieval form. The austere black ink, handled in a near-xylographic manner, reinforces the impression of timeless severity and spiritual concentration.

Yet beneath its archaic appearance lies a distinctly modern sensibility. In the decades surrounding the Second World War, religious imagery in Central Europe often became a vehicle for reflection on moral order and spiritual endurance. The figure of Saint Michael — the celestial defender — naturally assumed renewed symbolic force in a period marked by rupture and reconstruction.

Dorschner’s drawing thus stands at the intersection of tradition and modernity: medieval in vocabulary, yet unmistakably shaped by the concerns of its own time.