St. Jerome in His Study (ca.1475) by Antonello da Messina inspired me on composing the elements and building the concept of my latest painting. Reading things about this magnificent painting immediately urged me to write something about the work. In fact, I did not plan it as such a long article in the beginning, but I found myself doing an iconographical analysis of the work as I dove into its exquisite depths and was thrilled by every single detail of it. The masterpiece (today in National Gallery, London) has a theme that was commonly dealt with by the painters of the time. However, Antonello’s unusual way of conveying the theme [1] and the shocking fact that he fitted this extraordinarily detailed scene into an astoundingly small size (46 x 37 cm) make, I believe, the work different especially from other Jerome depictions of its time. In many Jerome depictions, we generally see a closer compositional frame and more claustrophobic space,...
Painting & Drawing Journal