03 — ARTWORK
St Jerome in his Study
- MEDIUM
- Engraving, 259 x 201 mm
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE ↓
- FILE
- 750 × 998 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
St Jerome in his Study is stressing the contemplative rather than the active aspect of Christian life. The engravingA print made from a metal plate that has had a design cut into it with a sharp point. Ink is smeared over the plate and then wiped off, the ink remaining in the etched lines being transferred when the plate is pressed very firmly onto a sheet of paper. shows the translator of the Bible deep in thought at his lecternA reading stand or desk, especially one at which the Bible is read., with the figure of the saint illuminated by sunlight streaming through the window panes into the cosy room. In front of St Jerome are the resting figures of his faithful lion and dog. A skull on the windowsill and an hourglass above the saint are reminders of the transience of life. The astonishing advance in Dürer's printmaking technique is evident when this engraving is compared with his early woodcutA print made from a wood block. The design is drawn on a smooth block of wood and then cut out, leaving the design standing up in relief the design to be printed. The person who carved the woodcut often worked to a design by another artist. of the same subject.
Dürer, according to the diary of his trip to the Netherlands during 1521-21, sold or gave away copies of this print more frequently than any of his others.
It has been repeatedly asserted that this engraving was to be part of a projected series representing the four human temperaments. Only two others have been so far identified, Melencolia I, and Knight, Death and Devil. Although they correspond in size, Dürer never gave away all three as a set. Occasionally he gave away St Jerome and Melencolia I as a pair.
In the last of the three master engravings, Dürer placed particular emphasis on the subtle differentiation of the material qualities of the objects, and the depiction of the interior according to the laws of central perspectivea scientific and mathematical method of three-dimensional representation developed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1376 -1446) at the beginning of the 15th century. Relative to the observer, all the converging lines lead toward a single vanishing point at the centre of the composition. An illusion of depth is created on two-dimensional picture surfaces by precise foreshortening and proportioning of the objects, landscapes, buildings and figures that are being depicted, in accordance with their distance from the observer., the converging lines of which terminate in the space to the right of the figure of the saint. The design is based on an exact plan of perspectiveThe method of representing three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Perspective gives a picture a sense of depth. The most important form of perspective in the Renaissance was linear perspective (first formulated by the architect Brunelleschi in the early 15th century), in which the real or suggested lines of objects converge on a vanishing point on the horizon, often in the middle of the composition (centralized perspective). The first artist to make a systematic use of linear perspective was Masaccio, and its principles were set out by the architect Alberti in a book published in 1436. The use of linear perspective had a profound effect on the development of Western art and remained unchallenged until the 20th century.. A certain degree of distortion is due to the fact that the vanishing pointIn perspective, the point on the horizon at which sets of lines representing parallel lines will converge. is placed close to the margin instead of the centre. This is a peculiarity that can be observed in other works by Dürer.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rd1136927d13b64,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {St Jerome in his Study by DÜRER, Albrecht},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/drer-albrecht-r9b10ff91cb62c2/st-jerome-in-his-study-rd1136927d13b64},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
