Artist: Georg Janny (1864–1935)
Title: The Dragon’s Cave (German: Drachenhöhle)
Date: 1917
Medium: oil on canvas
What I love about this painting:
What’s not to love about a dragon? Georg Janny gives us the beast in his natural environment. Our dragon is immense, gloriously armored with steel gray and silver scales. Twin streams of smoke rise from his nostrils, evidence of his fiery internal workings. The dragon sits at the entrance to his mountain aerie, surveying the world, and believes that he is the master.
I love fantasy paintings. The artists who painted scenery for the opera were, and are, incredibly skilled. The scenery painters of the early twentieth century were often influenced in their subject matter and style by the works of the pre-Raphaelites.
About the Artist, via Wikipedia:
Georg Janny (20 May 1864, Vienna – 21 February 1935, Vienna) was an Austrian landscape painter and set designer.
He worked as a scene painter in the studios of Carlo Brioschi and Johann Kautsky, alongside Alfons Mucha, and was a member of the Dürerbund.
In 1898, he participated in painting the “Eisernen Vorhang” (Iron Curtain) at the Vienna Volksoper for the 50th jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I. In 1904, he exhibited in the Austrian Pavilion at the St.Louis World’s Fair with scenes from the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways (now at the Technisches Museum Wien). Two years later, he designed the stage for The Queen of Sheba by Karl Goldmark, one of the most popular operas of the late 19th century. Pictures from the second and third acts have been preserved.
He also painted landscapes and figures, including scenes from fairy-tales or imaginary worlds that are reminiscent of the works of Arnold Böcklin or Gustave Doré. [1]
Credits and Attributions:
Image: The Dragon’s Cave by Georg Janny. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Georg Janny – The Dragon’s Cave 1917.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Georg_Janny_-_The_Dragon%27s_Cave_1917.jpg&oldid=636191261 (accessed August 25, 2023).
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Georg Janny,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georg_Janny&oldid=1159021400 (accessed August 25, 2023).
Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Georg Janny – The Dragon’s Cave 1917.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Georg_Janny_-_The_Dragon%27s_Cave_1917.jpg&oldid=636191261 (accessed August 25, 2023).
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 
