The Temptation Of St. Jerome

Giorgio Vasari • Painting, 1541, 169×123 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Religious scene
Style of art: Mannerism
Technique: Oil
Materials: Wood
Date of creation: 1541
Size: 169×123 cm
Artwork in collection: My collection Tatyana Somova
Artwork in selections: 7 selections

Description of the artwork «The Temptation Of St. Jerome»

The collection of the Palatine Gallery occupies the top floor of the Florentine Palazzo Pitti, began with the collection of paintings oligarchic Medici family. Not surprisingly, one of the most honorable seats have been reserved in the gallery for their court artist and author of the famous "Lives" of Giorgio Vasari. Stored there "The temptation of St. Jerome" one of his most famous paintings.

Jerome is among the most revered of Catholic saints. As a rule, in the art of the Renaissance and Baroque periods he is depicted with two mandatory attributes – pen and a scroll because Jerome was the translator of the Holy Scriptures and created a Church-approved translation of the Bible into Latin – the Vulgate. But Vasari has chosen to portray a less common story with Jerome – the moment of struggle of the ascetic and the hermit with carnal temptation.

Buxom kinky cupids allow to guess that the woman present on the picture is Venus, the goddess of love and one of the favorite heroines of creativity Vasari ("The Birth Of Venus").

In General, Venus and Jerome – the characters are not that from different historical periods (late antiquity, belief in pagan deities chronologically coexisted with faith in Christ and the veneration of the Christian saints). More to the point, Venus and Jerome – not from different periods and from fundamentally different discourses, Christian and pagan. Vasari is, however, not stop. He seems impressed with such eclecticism, because it allows "to harness in one cart" and purely religious content (dictated by customer), and honor Vasari Greco-Roman antiquity with its cult of physicality.

About "the Temptation of St. Jerome" Vasari left in the "Biography" of a detailed review, which delivered us from unnecessary search efforts. He explains that the righteous is pictured in a rare moment when he is pursued by the temptations of the flesh – and represents Venus, endowed with curly red hair and puffy shoulders – almost mandatory features of the Renaissance ideal of beauty.

Gets rid of sin Jerome, immersed in the contemplation of the body of Christ on the cross. Interestingly, Vasari portrays Him not as a crucifixion, plaster or wood, and as the living human body, only on a smaller scale. By design, it should attest not a book, but a living faith of the scholar Jerome. This belief is so strong that even draws in shameful flight to Venus. The same holds in the arms of Cupid, and by the hand leads, as explained by Vasari, "the figure of Playfulness". Cupids arrows broken and do not reach the goal. Golubka Venus have nothing to do in the life of St. Jerome.

"Many interesting inventions" and the placement of the characters Vasari was a great entertainer. Whether a good idea "Temptations of St Jerome"? To put it mildly – mixed. Vasari himself had the picture of mixed feelings. About her and made a copy of one of the works of Michelangelo, he wrote: "Although at the time all these paintings I liked very much was written on the conscience, yet I still don't know how much they like me now in this my age. However, since art in itself is a hard thing, we can't ask the artist what he can not do". And with this, I will not argue.

Author: Anna Yesterday
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