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Leonardo's Subject & Theories of Expression
Medieval and Renaissance artists depicted Saint Jerome (A.D. 345/47-420), a Christian theologian and celebrated translator of the Bible, in a variety of settings and with numerous attributes. Leonardo chose to portray the saint in an intimate scene of reverie, highlighting private mysticism rather than public achievements. Though the patron and circumstances of its production are unknown, the painting likely served as an aid in prayer and meditation.
Though the patron and circumstances of its production are unknown, the painting likely served as an aid in prayer and meditation. The scene is based on Jerome's later years as a hermit in the desert, as described in the thirteenth century Golden Legend. The penitent saint aged, gaunt, and nearly toothless kneels in the act of praying and beating his breast amid a rocky landscape. He directs his gaze at a crucifix, barely outlined in profile at right in a nearby cave. Reclining before the saint is a tame lion, his companion. The figure's pose recalls some of Leonardo's earlier designs (see illustration).
For Leonardo, a painter's most ambitious goal was to portray a composition (or istoria) with convincing emotion. The saint's face and gestures convey Leonardo's revolutionary theories on human physiognomy and expression. The artist wrote that the outward gestures of the face and body communicate the "motions of the mind" and the "passions of the soul." In the late 1480s and 1490s, his experimental anatomical research led him to believe that the seat of the soul lay on the center of the skull cavity (see illustration). |