Northern European School, second half of the 17th century, Saint Jerome in his Study

Northern European School, second half of the 17th century

St. Jerome in his study

Oil on canvas, 112×112 cm

With frame, 132 x 132 cm

The Saint Jerome in the Study before us is a work that can be ascribed to the second half of the seventeenth century with clear influences from Nordic culture: the descriptiveness present in the objects surrounding the saint, such as the scriptures he is consulting, the glasses, the skull, the letters and the various ornaments scattered around the room fit perfectly into the lenticular narration that finds a rapid connection in the Flemish masters. Secondly, however, it should be revealed how the figure of Saint Jerome is rendered with a naturalistic tone of almost prosaic verisimilitude, in the anatomical details, in the face marked by age, in the details of the white beard that covers the face and in the ecstatic but tired expression itself. This so declared realism belongs more to the language of the painters of northern Italy, especially Lombardy, such as Pietro Bellotto (Volciano, 1625 – Gargnano, 1700), an artist of Brescian origins who worked throughout Europe and who fully drew on the lesson of Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652); a counterpart of extreme naturalism and similar layout can be found in Bellotto's Socrate in a private collection or in the old Esone of the canvas preserved in Rovigo. The artist could certainly be one of the Flemish who arrived in Italy during the seventeenth century, such as Hendrick van Somer, a direct pupil of Ribera whose San Gerolamo in Palazzo Barberini finds the same attention to detail as our painting's writing. Another non-negligible component is that of the dark background illuminated in the foreground by a light that cuts through the composition in the Caravaggio manner; many artists, including the so-called tenebrosi, through the example of Caravaggio and his followers, such as Ribera, produced works that used this type of lighting, so dramatic and full of pathos, within their own works. The scope of these innovations also reached northern Italy: in Genoa, with Giovan Battista Langetti, whose figures of elderly people find confirmation together with the dark setting, and in Venice, with Antonio Zanchi and Pietro Negri, all more or less influenced by Ribera and his pupil Luca Giordano. The sum of these components therefore places the work within the Flemish sphere but with clear influences coming from Italian painting of the seventeenth century, especially from the geographical area that extends between Venice and Lombardy.