The Dürer Society (4.1901)

XVII.

St. Jerome in his Cell. 1514 (B. 60).
Photogravure from an impression in the British Museum^ from the Malcolm Collection,

Very few of Diirer’s Engravings are more charming or more perfect in technical accomplish-
ment than the “St. Jerome.” The pleasant, tidy room, with its ample provision of cushions and
wide, sunny window, is one of the most comfortable interiors in art, and the two sleeping animals
contribute much to the general air of cosiness. The light, direct and reflected, on the various surfaces,
is rendered, in the fine impressions, with a subtlety beyond the reach of any copy or reproduction.
Many admirers of Diirer will be content to recognise the learned saint by his familiar
attributes, the lion and the cardinal’s hat, without enquiring why Diirer engraved his picture with
such loving care. But so much has been attempted in the way of explanation, that I must, at least,
allude to a few of the attempts. The “St. Jerome” is uniform in dimensions, and in the high finish
of the technique, with the “Melencolia” of the same year, and the “Knight, Death and the Devil”
of 1513, and according to the interpretation popularised by Thausing and very widely accepted, the
three engravings belong to an incomplete series of the Four Temperaments or Complexions.
“Melencolia,” on this hypothesis, impersonates the Melancholic Temperament; the Knight, the Sanguine;
while the somewhat ungrateful part of the Phlegmatic falls to St. Jerome. The Choleric is wanting.
In the words of Dr. Paul Weber, “Oceans of innocent ink have been spilt” over this theory by the
learned. Dr. Lippmann, to avoid the difficulty of the missing fourth subject, has suggested that the
three prints correspond to a scholastic division of the virtues into intellectual, moral and theological.
Dr. Konrad Lange has called them very neatly “ Darstellungen des Glaubens, des Wissens und des
Konnens.” Dr. Weber argues with much ingenuity against either a trio or a quartet. He regards
the engraving of 1513, which Diirer himself calls “Der Reuter,” as a single subject, and wishes it to
be called “The Christian Knight”—the title is as old as Sandrart—connecting it with the
“Enchiridion Militis Christian!” of Erasmus, and with several older and more primitive representations
of the subject in art. Then he treats the “Melancholy” and “St. Jerome” as a pair, of which the
first only is numbered, and interprets
them as typical of profane and sacred
learning (litterae seculares, litterae divinae).
The lighting of the two subjects, the one
stormy, restless and full of gloom, the
other all sunshine and repose, contrasts
the discontent of the man of science
with the peace of the theologian,
studying in the light of divine revelation.
St. Jerome was treated in popular
literature as the special representative of
study, on account of the
was rebuked in a dream for
spending some part of his time on profane
authors. As Milton (inaccurately) puts
it in the “Areopagitica,” “the Divell
whipt St. Jerom in a lenten dream, for
reading Cicero.”
The whole question is too long
to be discussed here, but those who are
interested in the subject will find Dr.
Weber’s book, “Beitrage zu Diirer’s
Weltanschauung ” (Studien zur deutschen
Kunstgeschichte, No. 23, Strassburg,
Heitz & Miindel, 1900), extremely
suggestive and interesting throughout.
There is an old copy of this print (B. ix., 574. 2), signed W.S., inartistic, but amusing, in
which Luther usurps the place of St. Jerome. He has not stepped into the Cardinal’s shoes, or
removed his hat from the peg, and his efforts to appear at home in somebody else’s study are not
entirely successful. The lion dozes on, but the dog has vanished.


theological
story that he

14