Giovanni Bellini

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Venice, about 1455-60

Tempera on wood

44.2 x 30 cm

This painting is one of the earliest known paintings by Giovanni Bellini and one of the first Venetian landscapes. The simple combination of beautifully crafted elements reflects Bellini’s youth at the start of his 60-year career. The sunny warmth that bathes this scene is an exquisite example of Bellini’s unparalleled ability to convey light through the medium of paint.

Saint Jerome (about 342-420 AD), an early Christian priest and theologian, is one of the four Doctors of the Church. Here, he sits in a clay-like rock formation holding a book, symbolic of his role as translator and compiler of the Bible. Jerome also spent time in solitude in the wilderness. The rabbit in the bottom left corner represents Jerome’s experience as a hermit.

A lion sits opposite Jerome and holds up his paw, which has a thorn in it. Rather than immediately remove the thorn, Jerome appears to admonish and instruct the lion. Later in the story, Jerome helps the lion and becomes his closest companion.

The Barber’s small, narrative painting of Saint Jerome reflects a new type of object for the fifteenth-century Venetian art market. As Jerome was a scholar, paintings of him were exceedingly popular with high-class, humanist patrons. The theme brought together the two important worlds of religion and ancient culture.

Purchased 1949 (No. 49.1)

Further reading

Alexander-Skipnes, Ingrid, ‘St Jerome in the Wilderness: Paintings in Venice by Piero della Francesca, Giovanni Bellini, and Hieronymus Bosch’, Le dessin sous-jacent et la technologie dans la peinture, 14, 2001, pp. 286-97.

Bätschmann, Oskar, Giovanni Bellini, London, 2008, p. 104.

Belting, Hans, ‘Poetry and Painting: Saint Jerome in the Wilderness’, in Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice, ed. Davide Gasparotto, Los Angeles, 2017, pp. 25-36.

Belting, Hans, ‘St. Jerome in Venice: Giovanni Bellini and the Dream of Solitary Life’, in I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 17/1, 2014, pp. 5-33.

Blass-Simmen, Brigit, ‘“Qualche lontani”: Distance and Transcendence in the Art of Giovanni Bellini’, in Examining Giovanni Bellini: An Art ‘More Human and More Divine’, ed. Carolyn C. Wilson, Turnhout, 2015, pp. 77-92.

Dunkerton, Jill et al., ‘Giovanni Bellini’s Painting Technique’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 39, 2018, pp. 3-144.

Gasparotto, David, Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice, Los Angeles, 2017, pp. 58-63.

Gentili, Augusto, ‘Bellini and Landscape’, in The Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Bellini, ed. Peter Humfrey, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 167-81.

Maze, Daniel Wallace, ‘Giovanni Bellini: Birth, Parentage, and Independence’, Renaissance Quarterly, 66, 2013, pp. 783-823.