Leonardo da Vinci
Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness,” begun c. 1483
Vatican Museums, Vatican City State
The painting is unfinished, its origins shrouded in mystery—and yet it has been hailed as one of the great masterpieces in the history of art. More on this painting
Leonardo da Vinci, (born April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence — died May 2, 1519, Cloux, France), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time.
The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behaviour. An artist by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was man’s highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge, and knowing how to see became the great theme of his studies. He applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. He used his superb intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish. More Leonardo da Vinci
Francisco de Zurbarán, (1598–1664)
The Temptation of St. Jerome, c. 1639
Oil on canvas
235 × 290 cm (92.5 × 114.1 in)
Saint Mary of Guadalupe , in Extremadura, Spain
Francisco de Zurbarán (baptized November 7, 1598 – August 27, 1664) was a Spanish painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname Spanish Caravaggio, owing to the forceful, realistic use of chiaroscuro in which he excelled.
Zurbarán was born in Fuente de Cantos, near Badajoz. In 1617, after training in Seville, he returned to Llerena in his native province. By 1629 he was back in Seville, where he became the city's official painter.
In 1634 he was in Madrid painting mythologies for the Buen Retiro, Philip IV's new palace, perhaps through the intervention of his friend Velázquez. His last years were not so successful and he died in Madrid in poverty. More on Francisco de Zurbarán
The 2 decades from his early 20s were a period of much travel and temporary settlement. After a journey to the German city of Trier, he stopped for a time at Aquileia, in Italy, and there became a member of circle of young Christian intellectuals sharing a common commitment to the ascetic life. He had already formed his two consuming interests: scriptural studies and the pursuit of Christian asceticism.
Giovanni Bellini, (circa 1430 –1516)
St Jerome Reading in the Countryside, c. 1505
Oil on canvas
Height: 49 cm (19.2 in); Width: 39 cm (15.3 in)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C
Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini (who was more highly regarded than Giovanni during his lifetime, although the reverse is true today), and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He was considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it towards a more sensuous and colouristic style. Through the use of clear, slow-drying oil paints, Giovanni created deep, rich tints and detailed shadings. His sumptuous coloring and fluent, atmospheric landscapes had a great effect on the Venetian painting school, especially on his pupils Giorgione and Titian. More on Giovanni Bellini
In Syria from about 374, for 4 or 5 years he lived as a recluse in the desert. He made his first attempt to learn Hebrew under the guidance of a converted Jew; and he seems to have been in correspondence with Jewish Christians in Antioch.
Niccolò Antonio Colantonio, (ca. 1420–1460)
Saint Jerome in His Study, circa 1440-1470
Oil on panel
Height: 125 cm (49.2 in); Width: 151 cm (59.4 in)
National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, Italy
Colantonio (born Niccolò Antonio) was an Italian painter, who was the outstanding native figure in the art of Naples in the Early Renaissance.
Details of his life are obscure, though the Neapolitan Renaissance humanist Pietro Summonte (1463–1526) gave brief details in a letter to the Venetian Marcantonio Michiel in 1524. A birth-date of about 1420 is a generic calculation from the date of death. Colantonio was active in Naples between about 1440 and 1460 or later. He was perhaps first patronized by René d'Anjou, who ruled in Naples between 1438 and 1442. His last recorded commission is one by Queen Isabella in 1460, unless he is the Colantonio paid for decorating a room in the Castel Capuano in 1487. However Summonte says that he died young. More on Niccolò Antonio Colantonio
Jerome is often depicted with a lion, in reference to the popular hagiographical belief that Jerome had tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing its paw. The source for the story may actually have been the second century Roman tale of Androcles, or confusion with the exploits of Saint Gerasimus (Jerome in later Latin is "Geronimus"). Hagiographies of Jerome talk of his having spent many years in the Syrian desert, and artists often depict him in a "wilderness", which for West European painters can take the form of a wood.
Unknown artist
Gregory the Theologian
The Kariye Mosque, or the Church of the Holy Saviour,Istanbul, Turkey
I have no further description, at this time
The Kariye Mosque, or the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora, is a medieval Greek Orthodox church used as a mosque today in the Edirnekapı neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey.
Finding that life not entirely compatible, he journeyed in 379 to Constantinople, where he was a student of Gregory of Nazianzus; and there also he undertook the translation from Greek into Latin of homilies by Origen, that eminent biblical scholar much admired by Jerome.
Unknown artist
St Damasus I, Pope & Confessor
I have no further description, at this time
For 3 years from 382 Jerome was at Rome, serving as secretary to Pope Damasus. At the Pope's suggestion, he undertook a complete revision of the Latin Gospels of the New Testament, the aim of which was to replace older, varying, and inaccurate versions with a uniform one based on the best available Greek manuscripts.
Francisco de Zurbarán, (1598–1664)
St. Jerome with St. Paula Romana and her daughter, St. Eustochium, from 1638 until 1640
Oil on canvas
Height: 247 cm (97.2 in); Width: 174 cm (68.5 in)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Francisco de Zurbarán, see above
In Rome Jerome was surrounded by a circle of well-born and well-educated women, including some from the noblest patrician families, such as the widows Lea, Marcella and Paula, with Paula's daughters Blaesilla and Eustochium.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Paula's conversion by Saint Jerome, c. 1898
Wood, oil
50.8 x 112.7
Private collection
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA (8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch painter of special British denizenship.
Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky.
Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century English art. More on Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
The resulting inclination of these women towards the monastic life, away from the indulgent lasciviousness in Rome, and his unsparing criticism of the secular clergy of Rome, brought a growing hostility against him among the Roman clergy and their supporters.
The death of Damasus in 384 led to Jerome's departure from Rome, and in the company of a group of ascetic enthusiasts he made a pilgrimage to the monastic centers of Palestine and Egypt.
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
Saint Jerome in Penitence, c. 1595 - 1600
Oil on canvas
104.20 x 96.50 cm
National Galleries of Scotland
Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541 – 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco; Spanish for "The Greek", was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. The nickname "El Greco" refers both to his Greek origin and Spanish citizenship. The artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters.
El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the center of Post-Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before traveling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings.
El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. More on El Greco
André Reinoso, Portuguese painter (active v. 1610 to 1641).
Saint Paula instructs his nuns, c. 1650
Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, in Lisbon, Portugal
André Reinoso, Portuguese (active v. 1610 to 1641). Attributes to him are the nineteen panels of the Life of St. Francis Xavier (Lisbon, sacristy of the Church of St. Roch), whose picturesque composition, the abundance of characters and bizarre details, the wealth of color and chiaroscuro evoke the influence of contemporary Spanish workshops. The Church of Mercy in Obidos preserves intact the painted ensemble including the Visitation and Pentecost (1628) at the high altar and the Mount at Calvary and the Pietà (1630) on the side altars. Stylistic affinities also give him a panel of the Saint-Roch church and a series devoted to the Life of Saint Jerome (Lisbon, sacristy of the Jeronimos Church of Belém). More on André Reinoso
From 386 to the end of his life Jerome was settled in Bethlehem. There he presided over a monastery endowed by the wealthy Paula, who herself presided nearby over a sister foundation for women. Jerome's most significant accomplishment in his 34 years at Bethlehem was his translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew into Latin. It was an act of scholarly courage, arousing in his lifetime the criticism of many (including Augustine) who were wedded to the traditional Greek Old Testament as the basis for Latin translations. Of much less credit to Jerome in these years was his role in a number of vitriolic controversies; in the most unfortunate of these he aligned himself with implacable foes of that teacher, then dead a century and a half, from whom Jerome had learned so much—Origen. More on Saint Jerome
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