Jerome (circa 345-470 CE) was responsible for translating the Old and New Testaments from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. Called the Vulgate, his translation became the basis for the Bible as we know it in the West today. A well-traveled man, Jerome spent four years as a hermit in the Syrian Desert. His severe asceticism was in stark contrast to his more worldly religious service to Pope Damasus I in Rome. Following the pope’s death, Jerome settled in Bethlehem, where he spent the rest of his life translating the Scriptures. Depictions of St. Jerome in the desert or wilderness became popular in Netherlandish art at the end of the 15th century.
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Joos van Cleve portrays the penitent saint in a grotto and, according to tradition, as an emaciated, bearded old man kneeling before a small altar with a crucifix, a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and a book, likely the Bible. He has stripped his garments—a cardinal’s robe and hat lie nearby (a likely reference to his work with Pope Damasus, as the office of cardinal did not exist in Jerome’s time)—and beats his breast with a stone. A skull faces the saint as an emblem of mortality. Nearby rests a lion devoted to Jerome since, by popular legend, the saint extracted a thorn from the animal’s paw.
Typical of Flemish painting is the nearly microscopic detail given in equal measure to every element of the composition. Everyday life in the artist’s own 16th century is the backdrop against which St. Jerome withdraws from the world; but the world easily tempts him with a lush view of Flanders through the grotto’s arched portal. The exotic rock formations that comprise Jerome’s “desert” were a specialty of the 16th-century Flemish painter Joachim Patinir. One of the first artists to be influenced by Patinir’s landscapes was Joos van Cleve. Muskegon’s painting, which dates to the period when Patinir was active in Antwerp, is the first known example of van Cleve adopting the artist’s style. Scholarship surrounding van Cleve suggests the possibility that Patinir painted this landscape, into which van Cleve set Jerome and his array of attributes. For a workshop with a large international clientele like Joos van Cleve’s, such collaboration would have been good business practice. Our St. Jerome was included in the seminal 2011 exhibition Joos van Cleve: Leomardo of the North, organized by the Suermondt Ludwig Museum in Aachen, Germany.