Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Saint Jerome in His Study
Artist: Albrecht Dürer (German, Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg)
Date: 1514
Medium: Engraving
Dimensions: sheet: 9 11/16 x 7 7/16 in. (24.6 x 18.9 cm) trimmed on plate line
Classification:Prints
Of Dürer’s three technically brilliant Meisterstiche (master engravings) of 1513 and 1514, this is the one whose interpretation seems the most straightforward. Saint Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) and thus the exemplar of the Christian scholar, is seated in a typical study of Dürer’s day. He works peacefully at a slanted writing table, and his lion and dog slumber equally peacefully in the foreground. The light of his halo and the sunlight pouring in through the windows are in perfect equilibrium, and recurrent horizontals in the composition add to the pervasive sense of repose and harmony.
This picture is so richly detailed, from the sun bonnet (?) on the wall to the slippers on the floor. And it’s provocative with the lion lying there. There’s a lot to look at !!
I agree with the comment about the level of detail. From the whorls in the grain of wood in the ceiling, to the intricate patterns the sunlight makes as it passes through the window and lands on the wall, to the lumpen cushions on all the chairs and benches. And what are the animals doing there? And I have another, real question — how did people use an hour glass back when they were part of every household?
You have the sleepy lion and dog dozing out on the floor, and you have the man at his writing desk filling in an order form for sheep (to feed the lion) and rats (to feed the dog). Better hurry!
On the one hand, this looks like a pretty comfortable abode with lots of cool architectural details. On the other hand, you have the human skull on the window ledge, and below it on the floor is a pair of slippers. Do the slippers belong to the person who’s now merely a disembodied skull?
That’s the mystery!
Sun’s on the left. AS USUAL. But there’s also a halo around the man’s head, a religious artifact. Which religion? Halos were used by artists in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam…I agree with the comment above about whether the empty slippers bear a relationship to the skull above them. That may be where the real story lies. I also like the tilted desk that the man is writing on – I could use one myself! It would be fun to see this in the museum on a lecture tour, and ask what all the objects in the room are for.