Saint Jerome (St Jerome in the Wilderness)

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Saint Jerome (St Jerome in the Wilderness): Albrecht Durer

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Albrecht Durer Oil Painting - Saint Jerome (St Jerome in the Wilderness)

Keywords: Saint, Jerome, Jerome, Wilderness

Work Overview: Saint Jerome (St. Jerome in the Wilderness)
Artist Albrecht Dürer
Year c. 1495–1496
Medium Oil on panel
Dimensions 23 cm × 17 cm (9.1 in × 6.7 in)
Location National Gallery, London

St. Jerome in the Wilderness is a double-sided oil on panel painting by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, executed around 1496, now in the National Gallery in London, where both sides are displayed.

The work was attributed to Dürer in 1957,[1] basing on the resemblance between the lion and a similar animal on a membrane drawing from the artist's second trip to Venice, now at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. The lion was almost surely drawn from St. Mark's Lion depictions in the city.

The painting was previously in the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge, and was later bought by the London museum.

St. Jerome was a common subject of art at the time. Dürer for this works was probably inspired by similar depictions by Giovanni Bellini, or other artists influenced by Andrea Mantegna.

Jerome is portrayed during his hermitage, surrounded by all the symbols traditionally attributed to him: the tamed lion, the hat and the cardinal garments on the ground (a symbol of rejection of earthly honors), the book (Jerome was a translator of the Vulgate), the stone he used to hit himself, and the crucifix for the prayers.

The depiction of nature is typical of Northern European art, with numerous details such as the small birds, the white butterfly in the lower part, as well as the fine rendering of the trunk's bark or the depiction of grass spear by spear. The sky in the background is similar to Dürer's watercolor of the Pool in the Wood, now in the British Museum.

On the reverse of this painting is an intriguing image of what appears to be a meteor/meteorite or comet. Dürer's inspiration may have been the depictions of comets in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493.[2] However, those woodcuts are highly stylized, and are not intended to show historical comets, whereas Dürer's image has the feel of an actual observation, as does the blazing star in Dürer's enigmatic engraving Melencolia I, published in 1514.

If Dürer's images do represent actual celestial objects, then there are three possible candidates. The first is the Comet of 1491. Dr Sten Odenwald said that it "allegedly came to within 0.0094 AU on 1491 Feb. 20.0 TT, but the orbit of this comet is very uncertain";[3] NASA's website agrees with Odenwald's comment on the orbit.[4] The second is the Ensisheim meteorite. This was suggested by Ursula B Marvin ('The meteorite of Ensisheim – 1492 to 1992',(1992)), in relation to Melencolia I. This object fell in Alsace on 7 November 1492. The third is the comet of 1493, mentioned in the chronological section of Sir David Brewster's The Edinburgh Encyclopædia, which said it was: "seen before and after passing its meridian."

St Jerome kneels as a penitent. In his right hand he holds the Bible, which he translated into Latin, and in his left hand the stone which he is using to beat his breast. His eyes stare upwards, beyond the small crucifix stuck into the tree trunk. Wearing a blue gown, his red mantle and cardinal's hat lie beside him on the ground. Behind is his faithful lion, befriended after he had removed a thorn from its paw. In the background is a landscape with dramatic rock formations, probably based on sketches that Dürer had made of the quarries near Nuremberg. The scene is lit by a dramatic evening sky.

The reverse of the panel depicts an apocalyptic celestial phenomenon, a red star-like light and a streaking golden disc. Although some scholars have considered it to be an eclipse or meteor, it is almost certainly a comet. Dürer's image is probably derived from woodcuts of comets published in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. A similar object to the one painted by Dürer appears in the sky of his engraving of Melencolia I, made 20 years later.

This small double-sided devotional painting, which depicts Saint Jerome in a landscape on the front, and a scene with a heavenly body in a night sky on the reverse, probably dates from just after Dürer's first journey to Italy, in 1494-5, early in his career.

Although the saint's pose is conventional, Saint Jerome is set against an atmospheric landscape evocative of some of the most famous of Dürer's early watercolour landscapes.

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