Saint Jerome in His Study
Albrecht Dürer
ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1514. ENGRAVING
We are gifted a moment of quiet, at once intimate and grand, and become spectators to a Saint’s contemplation. In the study, Saint Jerome is engrossed at his desk and the objects of his life are laid out around him in use and mess - the ceilings are low and the room looks almost familiar, strangely human. Yet as one looks deeper, impossibility arises. The perspective creates intimacy but positions us as viewing from somewhere unplaceable, and the objects that at first seem to make sense within the room, are revealed to defy laws of physics. Then there is the lion that rests on the floor, next to a dog - a traditional part of Jerome’s iconography teamed with a symbol of domesticity, co-existing together. Dürer draws this duality across the work, perhaps most obviously in the line from Jerome’s glowing halo, through the crucifix, to the skull on the windowsill, with an hourglass positioned above. This is a story in objects, of death and mortality to resurrection, and redemption through belief and prayer.