St. Jerome in His Study (Antonello da Messina)
The hl. Jerome in his study (also: St. Jerome in his Study. ) Is a painting by Antonello da Messina. It originated in the second half of the 15th century. The image is one of the first paintings in Italian painting, which originated in the technique of oil painting.
Art Historical Background
The tempera technique previously used in Italian painting could not reach the precision and the splendor of the already applied by Dutch painters oil technology. Antonello took over well with a stay in Milan in 1456 by Dutchman Petrus Christus this technique. Giorgio Vasari had indeed written, Antonello was in Flanders and become a friend of Jan van Eyck. This view is now rejected by recent research as unlikely. Antonello led the technology first in Venice and made it his students and colleagues.
The representation
The template for this painting could be the image St. Hieronymus be his teacher Colantonio del Fiore been this created it 1445-1450 in Naples. According to legend, the Holy pulled a thorn from a lion 's paw of, is said to have then always accompanied him tame. Colantonio notes in his paintings of the saints in a writing room is directed both at the moment in which he frees the lion from the mandrel.
Antonello is this scene, however, no room. His Jerome is depicted in the style of a humanist formed. The lion as one of its attributes is also present, but in the shadow occurs (right half under the round-topped arches ). The second attribute, the cardinal's hat, lying on a bench behind the reading saints.
The picture opens by the look in a carefully illustrated portal of stone. This method of making low- impact is likely to Antonello have also taken over by the Dutch painting, she had been applied there for some time.
Also on Dutch art reminds the perspective view of the floor tiles with their " virtuosic " shadow effects. The light guide of the image is unusual. At the same time light falls from the front of the portal, as well as from the back through the window and " from below" to lighten the vault, they also draws on examples of Dutch examples. This has meant that the image was a while Hans Memling attributed.
The vaults, which are illuminated so unusual to have been designed by southern Italian models.
There 's no lack two potted herbs. Herbs representation have a certain tradition, recognizable as the picture The Dream of Saint Ursula by Vittore Carpaccio, created in 1495 in Renaissance painting.
Numerous small details, such as the cat or the peacock, he symbolized the incorruptibility of the flesh by the participation of the people in the Eucharist on the portal, give the picture its " unique atmosphere ".
Aftermath
The painting of Antonello da Messina, in particular, the new technology has taken over quite quickly. His best known immediate successor was Alvise Vivarini, a little later, and interact with him then Giovanni Bellini. Vivarini, in turn, prepared the subsequent " triumph " of Venetian painting, as with the artists Titian, Giorgione and Palma Vecchio. Ultimately it can be said that Antonello's painting on all subsequent Venetian artist might have had strong influence.