Art Collections and Discussion

How to draw dragons | Art history | Museums | Sundsvall's "Art on the Streets" project | Public art | Other collections | Dragon clipart

How to draw dragons

Tutorial: Dragon in Acrylics from Amanda and Donna Quinn's excellent Sommerland: On Dragons.

The Dragon Tutorial by Jessica Peffer, see the tutorials page for tutorials on Claws & Talons, Skin Based Wings, Feathered Wings, etc. Peffer's own art is scrumptious. She also has a coloring bin.

Art history

See also Art History for Kids.

All about the St. George and the Dragon group in the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, Stockholm, by Martin Hagstrjøm.

Dragons In Islamic and Chinese Art by J. Barry O'Connell, Jr. Detouring somewhat from his regular beat, rugs, art historian O'Connell is struck by some similarities between specific Chinese and Persian dragon images. He also has an interesting analysis of a Persian drawing:"Dragon & Horseman" , allegedly by Sadiqi Beg. Contesting Sotheby's date of 1540-50, O'Connell minutely examines details against other contemporary images, disputing the authorship and arriving at a date some 50 years later. He also has a good set of pages on Caucasian and Persian Dragon rugs.

Museums

National Library of the Netherlands. Seventy-nine images of dragons. All of their images have apparently been tagged with "icon classifications," a very useful system where, for example, all images of Saint George are sorted under 11H(GEORGE)41.

British Museum. 108 images, from Mesopotamia to the Edward Burne-Jones.

Getty Museum. 37 works of art, including many medieval manuscripts.

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Includes pieces like Maxfield Parrish's Alarums and Excursions.

New York Public Library Search: "Dragons." Three pages. Some "dragoons" (French: dragon) are mixed in. A subject search on Dragons yields a slightly different set.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. They have Raphael's Saint George and the Dragon.

National Gallery (UK). Dragon artists include Tintoretto, Moreau and Uccello.

Harvard University Museums (Fogg, Sackler, etc.). A few nice pieces, a lot of second-tier stuff (this just means they're better than most museums in getting everything online)

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has a lot of dragons, particularly 18-19c. Japanese works. I can't preload the search, so enter "dragon OR dragons."

Metropolitan Museum, New York. Diverse.

Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Impressive collections of Asian art.

British Library Manuscripts (add "dragon" to image description). Thirteen medieval manuscripts, some very detailed.

British Library: Digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. I can't preload the search results. Type "dragon" and you get 13 results.

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA.

Detroit Institute of Arts. Nice museum but no search feature.

Sundsvall's "Art on the Streets" project

Max Magnus Norman designed a Draconaut for the "Art on the Streets" project in Sundsvall, Sweden (akin to the cow project in Chicago, ie., everyone starts with the same dragon). His attitude to "public art" is supremely refreshing:

"My personal reflections is that I'm somewhat in doubt over the idea that people should be able to touch and climb works of art. The art is one of the few sacred instances left in our society - and perhaps the only legitimate seen from a humanistic perspective - and this ought to be respected."

Vacation photos from Sundsvall, Sweden. Neither the photographer or the artists for each of the dragons is known to me.

Public art

Nancy Sch�n has designed "public art" dragons for Naples, Florida and Dorchester, Massachusetts. The Dorchester dragon is styled a "Global dragon!", a peaceable vegetarian, with a heart-shaped tail. Sch�n brough McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings to life in Boston (a favorite of mine).

Other collections

Prof. David Woods' Saint George pages, includes a variety of galleries:

• Western Art, 14-19th century
• Eastern Icons
• Modern (Contemporary) Art
• Miscellaneous
• Coins

Dragon gallery from The Order of Dragonslayer, a virtual order for an online game (I think).

Chinese dragon stamps (1878-1883)

AbsoluteArts.com. Art for sale, much quite expensive. No junk, which is a relief.

Chinese dragon stamps from 18th Asian International Stamp Exhibition

Dragon gallery from Fantasy Age.

Greek mythology images compiled by Z. Philip Ambrose.

One gallery and another (all uncredited), from Linda's Dragynzz Lair.

"Caladron's Nest" gallery. Many images, unfortunately uncredited.

Dragon Artist List from Polenth Blake's Dragon Stone.

Rien's Dragon Lair gallery, one hundred works of fantasy art, no credits.

Danish page about Dragons, with some excellent illustrations.

Dragon clipart

Free dragon clipart from Amanda and Donna Quinn's Sommerland: On Dragons.