''Saint Jerome in the Wilderness'' is an
unfinished painting by the
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
artist
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
, dated . The composition of the painting has been drafted in monochrome onto the primed wooden panel. At an unknown date after Leonardo's death, the panel was cut into five pieces before eventually being restored into its original form (minus a very small triangle). Created during Leonardo's last years in Florence, or his first years in Milan, the work is now in the
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...
.
Description
The oil draft of an unfinished painting depicts Saint
Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...
in advanced age during his retreat to the
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n desert, where he lived the life of a
hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Description
In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...
. The saint kneels in a rocky landscape, gazing toward a crucifix which can be discerned faintly sketched in at the extreme right of the painting. In Jerome's right hand he holds a rock with which he is traditionally shown beating his chest in penance. At his feet is the lion which became a loyal companion after he extracted a thorn from its paw. The lion, the stone and a cardinal's hat are the traditional attributes of the saint.
On the left-hand side of the panel the background is a distant landscape of a lake surrounded by precipitous mountains shrouded in mist. To the right-hand side, the only discernible feature is a faintly-sketched church, seen through the opening in the rocks. The church's presence may allude to Jerome's position in Western Christianity as one of the
Doctors of the Church
Doctor of the Church (Latin: ''doctor'' "teacher"), also referred to as Doctor of the Universal Church (Latin: ''Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis''), is a title given by the Catholic Church to saints recognized as having made a significant contribu ...
.
The composition of the painting is innovative for the oblique
trapezoid
A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium ().
A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...
form of the figure of the saint. The angular forms contrast with the sinuous form of the lion which transcribes an "S" across the bottom of the painting. The lion is also a symbol of power and strength associated with the
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to h ...
which Jerome translated into Latin. The form of Saint Jerome prefigures that of the Virgin Mary in the ''
Virgin of the Rocks
The ''Virgin of the Rocks'' ( it, Vergine delle rocce), sometimes the ''Madonna of the Rocks'', is the name of two paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, with a composition which is identical except fo ...
''. The rendering of the muscles in the neck and shoulders is seen as the first of
Leonardo's anatomical drawings.
Interpretation
Penitence is one of the themes central to religious iconography. Jerome, who is primarily famous for his translation of the Bible into Latin, the so-called
Vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
, in old age retreated to the wilderness as a
penitent. Here, as in any other paintings of this subject, he meditates on the crucified Christ. Beyond the crucifix may be seen the faint image of a church, probably representing a vision of the
New Jerusalem
In the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible, New Jerusalem (, ''YHWH šāmmā'', YHWH sthere") is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city centered on the rebuilt Holy Temple, the Third Temple, to be established in Jerusalem, which would be the c ...
, the heavenly afterlife to which Jerome aspires.
It has been speculated by George Bent that Leonardo's choice of subject matter here might relate directly to Leonardo's own spiritual life, most particularly to an accusation in 1476 of his involvement in homosexual activities with a male prostitute,
Jacopo Saltarelli. Charges were brought on four young men because of an anonymous accusation. Homosexual activity was illegal in Florence. They were not convicted. According to Bent, Leonardo may be seen as experiencing remorse either for his ordeal or his transgression which allowed him to identify more closely with the suffering depicted in the ''Saint Jerome'' oil sketch.
Provenance
The panel has been reduced in size and the remaining part was cut into five parts at some point in its history and was reassembled for the early 19th-century collector,
Cardinal Fesch
Joseph Fesch, Prince of France (3 January 1763 – 13 May 1839) was a French priest and diplomat, who was the maternal half-uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte (half-brother of Napoleon's mother Laetitia). In the wake of his nephew, he became Archbishop ...
, the uncle of
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
. Popular legend has it that the cardinal discovered the part of the panel with the saint's torso being offered as a table top or box lid in a shop in Rome. Five years later, he found another piece being used as a wedge for shoemaker's bench. Whatever the circumstances of Fesch's finding the parts, the repaired panel was sold by his descendants to
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
, who installed it in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, now part of the
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...
. The ''Saint Jerome'' was once believed to have been part of the collection of the painter
Angelica Kauffman
Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( ; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, K ...
, but this theory too has been rejected by recent scholars.
[Zöllner, Frank, ''Leonardo da Vinci: the complete paintings and sculptures''. London: ]Taschen
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
History
The company began as Taschen Comics, pu ...
, 2003, p. 221
Exhibitions
Although normally on display at the Vatican Museums, ''Saint Jerome'' was loaned to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York during the summer of 2019 in the Robert Lehman Wing, from July 15 to the start of October. The display was a dedicated stand-alone presentation of the painting under subdued lighting for preservation purposes.
[Holland Cotter. "What Leonardo Da Vinci Could Not Finish". The New York Times. July 11, 2019]
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Jerome In The Wilderness
Lions in art
Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo
Leonardo is a masculine given name, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese equivalent of the English, German, and Dutch name, Leonard
Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname.
The given name and surname originate ...
Paintings in the collection of the Vatican Museums
Churches in art
Unfinished paintings