A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

773. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

Cosimo Tura (Ferrarese: 1420-1495). See 772.

Jerome knocking at his poor old breast
With his great round stone to subdue the flesh—

and schooling himself into renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. In contrast to the wildness of the surroundings, the painter introduces quite a company of birds and beasts—an owl sits in sedate wisdom above the saint, his familiar lion is walking to the stream for water, and in the crannies and ledges are other animals to keep him company. For it was his union of gentleness and refinement with noble continence, his love and imagination winning even savage beasts into domestic friends, that distinguished St. Jerome and formed the true monastic ideal (see 227).