Landscape with St Jerome

Patenier painted and signed his Landscape with St Jerome in about 1515. From a high vantage point, the eye is initially drawn to the foreground motifs, but then passes on stage by stage through an immense landscape, a spatial continuum that extends to the far horizon and narrow strip of sky. In the left foreground, in front of a soaring rock formation with a cavity that attracts the gaze, the saint is seated in front of a primitive shelter built up against the rock. He is concentrating on extracting a thorn from a lion’s paw. In the distance, barely detectable, Patenier has depicted further legendary events in which the lion, St Jerome’s companion, plays a role. Finally on the rocky plateau with monastery building, St Jerome forgives and blesses the repentant merchants who had stolen a donkey from him.

With this painting the artist created a universal landscape, not because he depicted a particular panorama but because he went beyond the aspect of landscape to expound a view of the world, a comprehensive Christian view. The subjectivity of the visual experience that transforms a depiction of nature into a landscape compels the individual viewer to assume a very personal standpoint with respect to this implied world view.