Huber and Albrecht Altdorfer (also in the exhibition) were leaders of the Danube School, a group of artists working around the River Danube in Regensburg, Passau, and Vienna whose work was dominated by an interest in nature. They used landscape elements to an unprecedented degree to emphasize subject and mood. As the figures in these compositions became smaller and less consequential, landscape itself became the subject in its own right for the first time in the history of Western art.

In Saint George and the Dragon, the figures appear to blend into an atmospheric landscape which, in its subtle play of light and shade, emphasizes the drama as Saint George prepares to strike the dragon.