Description
Saint Jerome is shown as an elderly man with an aged and partially nude body, seated at a table while concentrating on writing in a large book. Caravaggio reduces the scene to its essential elements: the saint, the books, the quill, the skull and the broad red drapery providing the principal chromatic accent. The dark background almost completely eliminates any spatial reference, allowing the light to model the old man's face, arms and torso with remarkable intensity and emphasizing both his physical frailty and intellectual concentration.
The painting belongs to Caravaggio's Maltese period and returns to a subject he had previously explored in Rome. The Maltese version, however, is particularly austere in its construction, with extensive empty areas and increasingly selective illumination. The skull introduces a meditation on mortality, while the act of writing refers to Jerome's intellectual activity as translator and scholar of Scripture.
