Caravaggio’s Saint Jerome

This painting by Caravaggio (1571 – 1610) of Saint Jerome, deep in study, is one of the painter’s best examples of deep, rich colors, light, and his attention to detail.

Most renditions of Saint Jerome by painters and illustrators find him in his study because he was commissioned by Pope Damasus the 1st to revise the Latin text of the Bible, known as the ‘Vulgate’ that is still in use today.

Saint Jerome was born to a pagan family circa 365 C.E., to later study the law and become a lawyer. However, he soon later changed his subject of study to theology, where his true conversion to Christianity occurred. He was also baptized around this time.

Caravaggio’s life was short though full. But, to my way of thinking, he was a true genius with a hot temper, a love affair with alcohol, and was often described as “extremely crazy.”

This painting is not one of his best however reveals his genius for color and “realism”; now considered the founder of the Baroque period where his emphasis on deep shadow contrasting blinding light is the art movement’s definitive trademark, so to speak, and made him famous at the time.

Some art scholars have written that it was only in the early twentieth century that Caravaggio’s work had come back into vogue. I find this astonishing considering the man’s genius.

Saint Jerome is not so much remembered for his scholarly works but for the incident where he came upon a lion with a thorn in its paw. He removed the thorn without any protest from the king of beasts…and as legend has it, the lion remained at Saint Jerome’s side for many years.

He lived the last thirty years in the Holy Land, more or less a recluse, continuing to translate texts, write prayers biographies, and collect a vast library of scrolls.

Because he was a scholar of the Church, his patronage included: archaeologists, archivists, Bible scholars, librarians, translators, and school children.

Saint Augustine said about Saint Jerome:

What Jerome is ignorant of, no man has ever known.

This painting of Saint Jerome has to be one of my favorites of the artist’s entire body of work.