''Saint Jerome in the Desert'' is an oil painting on canvas of 1505 by the Italian Renaissance master

Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 29 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father, ...

, now in the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Little remains of the signature on the first rock in the left foreground, but it has been confirmed as genuine during restoration and can be reconstructed as " ohannes Bellinu. 1505". This is problematic, since the work's general style is linked to fashions no later than 1490, whereas Bellini's style of figures and landscapes had already begun to be influenced by

Giorgione Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco (; 1470s – 17 September 1510), known as Giorgione, was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, ...

by 1500, with the backgrounds more fused and unified in terms of atmosphere. The composition makes it more analogous to his earlier works, such as the '' Saint Jerome in the Desert'' of c. 1480 in the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of th ...

. The Washington work may have been a collaboration, a work completed by a pupil in Bellini's studio, or left incomplete and only finished by Bellini himself much later.Mariolina Olivari, ''Giovanni Bellini'', in Various authors, ''Pittori del Rinascimento'', Scala, Florence 2007.

Saint Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known for his translation of the Bible ...

is shown reading in the desert, referring to his life as a hermit and as the author of the

Vulgate Bible The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Roman Church. Later, of his own initia ...

. A lizard, a squirrel and hare appear among the rocks, while in the distance are a ruined Roman bridge and series of arches along with a walled city. In the center background is another city on an island or peninsula in the sea. The fig tree, bare tree and crumbled rocks are all theological symbols. The upper left part of the ruins and other more stiffly painted parts of the background were probably produced by Bellini's studio.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Jerome in the Desert (Bellini, Washington) Paintings by Giovanni Bellini Paintings in the National Gallery of Art 1505 paintings Books in art Rabbits and hares in art Bellini Squirrels in art