Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Cima da Conegliano

National Gallery of Art

A balding, bare-chested man with a long white beard kneels on a dirt ground to our right in front of a rocky cave opening in this vertical painting. The man holds a rock in one hand and looks up at a man hanging on a cross to the left. The kneeling man, Saint Jerome, has peach-colored skin and a fringe of gray hair. He has a rounded nose, deep-set eyes, a prominent brow, hollow cheekbones, and his lips are parted to reveal two teeth. His body is angled to our left, and he looks up in that direction with blue eyes. His sleeveless, long, powder-blue garment is taken off one shoulder to reveal his chest, and one bare foot sticks out under the hem of the robe behind him. A lion lies under the cave opening, which towers over Saint Jerome and continues off the top edge of the painting. The crucifix is opposite Saint Jerome. The haloed, mostly nude man hanging on the cross is about half the size of Saint Jerome, and has pale skin, brown hair, and a white loincloth across his hips. The wooden cross is braced by rocks. A black snake emerges from a crevice near the base of the cross and appears to head for Saint Jerome. A vivid blue river is glimpsed just beyond this rocky bit of land. Trees and a hill on the far side frame a deep, grassy expanse that leads back to a walled town and pale blue mountains along the horizon. A few white clouds skim across a pale blue sky in the top left quadrant of the painting. The artist signed the work as if he had written his name on a scroll of paper propped up in front of Saint Jerome’s knee, in the bottom right corner of the painting: “Joannis b pt C.”