Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio was created in 1606. The painting is in Galleria Borghese Rome. The size of the work is 112 x 157 cm and is made as an oil on canvas.
The main features are the illusionistic representation of the still life on the table and the power of the red cloak enveloping the white-haired figure of the saint. In this artwork, Saint Jerome is not depicted as a penitent, as is often the case, but rather as a scholar. His head counterbalanced with the skull, he is focused on reading and annotating the sacred passages and symbolically counters the futility of worldly goods. The concept of St. Jerome’s Writing is itself an astonishing achievement, in which the composition and the subject strengthen each other: an aging saint, hectically concentrating on what he has written, extends a twisting hand to the inkwell on the other side of the table, and at the same time points to the skull, a reminder about death, which symmetrically observes him in his very struggle to overcome it. (Read more in Galleria Borghese, Rome)
About the Artist: Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in Milan. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism… Read more
