Description
Saint Jerome Writing , painted around 1605–1606 , depicts the saint absorbed in the study and writing of Scripture. Caravaggio portrays him as an elderly, emaciated man seated at a table and partly wrapped in a large red cloak. With his arm extended, Jerome writes in a book while other volumes and a skull occupy the table. The skull creates a powerful visual relationship with the saint's own head and serves as a memento mori , a reminder of the inevitability of death.
The austerity of the setting focuses attention on Jerome's intellectual and spiritual activity. Selective illumination isolates the body, books and objects against the dark background, transforming a scene of study into a meditation on knowledge, penitence and mortality. Jerome was revered as a translator and scholar of Scripture, making his image a way of presenting spiritual life as sustained intellectual labour.
