Category Archives: St Jerome in the Wilderness

Leonardo’s monumental cliffs

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According to the historian Silvano Vinceti, another detail in the Mona Lisa painting that helped identify the Romito di Laterina bridge was the rock formation behind the sitter’s right shoulder. Vinceti described them as clay pinnacles located ten miles away from the bridge, as presented in the photograph below.

Most likely they are the monumental rocks known as the balze (crags) of Valdarno, “created from sand, clay and gravel, and shaped by the wind and rain in a place where millions of years ago, there was a huge lake…”

Vinceti was not the first to associate these crags on the shoulder of Mona Lisa with those of Valdarno, located between Florence and Arezzo. Other researchers have pointed out the similarity. However, what no-one has yet discovered is that Leonardo embedded in his depiction of the crags a likeness to one of his sketchbook drawings from 1478, the head captioned: ‘Fioravante di Domenico… in Florence is my most cherished companion, as though he were my…’” I presented details about this last month at this link.

To best visualise the feature and make a comparison to the drawing, the painting needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the left. When the painting is rotated 90 degrees to the right then another feature appears, the head of a lion, and representing Leonardo, the other head in the sketch. 

detail from the Mona Lisa painting showing the profile of a lion’s head
The heads of ‘Domenico and Leonardo da Vinci’… resurface and face each other again as ‘Domenico and the Lion’s Head’ in Leonardo’s painting of the Mona Lisa.
detail from the Mona Lisa painting – a pointer to the Archangel Uriel?

A third figure is also embedded in the crags, its head reminiscent of the Archangel Uriel’s turned head in Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks (pictured right), perhaps suggesting the cavernous backdrop in this earlier painting was also inspired by the baize of Valdarno.

Another feature in the Mona Lisa painting is the winding path from the lion’s head. This too is possibly a pointer to one of Leonardo’s first paintings, the unfinished portrayal of Jerome in the Desert which also features a rocky backdrop, and a lion with a winding tail.

But why would Leonardo want to reference in the Mona Lisa painting an earlier drawing of the head of a man made around 1478? And could the faceless ‘Uriel’ and the ‘Mona Lisa’ be connected in some way, or be even the same person?

St Jerome in the Desert, Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

This is what Leonardo wrote in his notebook on the subject of pareidolia: 

A Way of Development and Arousing the Mind to Various Inventions:
“I cannot forbear to mention among these precepts a new device for study which, although it may seem but trivial and almost ludicrous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to various inventions. And this is, when you look at a wall spotted with stains, or with a mixture of stones, if you have to devise some scene, you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautified with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys and hills in varied arrangement; or again you may see battles and figures in action; or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects, which you could reduce to complete and well drawn forms. And these appear on such walls confusedly, like the sound of bells in whose jangle you may find any name or word you choose to imagine.”

THE NOTEBOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI, CHAPTER IX, THE PRACTICE OF PAINTING

More heads… and shoulders

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This is the second part of a sequence demonstratrating how Hugo van der Goes ‘translated’ iconography from Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished painting of Jerome in the Desert (see previous two posts) to the Panel of the Relic, the sixth section of the St Vincent Panels.

The Vatican Museums which houses Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of Jerome dates the unfinished work to c1482, the year that is also put forward for the death of Hugo van der Goes.

Below are details from two versions of the St Jerome painting, before and after its latest restoration. At some time the oil on wood panel was cut into five parts, generally considered to have happened after Leonardo had died in 1519. You can see some of the cut marks on the earlier version that frame Jerome’s head. The latest restoration has also brought back to life the sky backdrop which tapers to a sharp point and which had been overpainted on a previous restoration, probably at the time the cut-down pieces were reassembled.

Apart from representing tassels hanging from a cardinal’s hat, the larger mount and the smaller one next to it equate to the ears of both donkey and hare, attributes associated with the story of St Jerome in the desert.

Both the tapering gap between the rock formation and the vertical cut mark which runs through Jerome’s shoulder are two key components adpated by Hugo van der Goes for linking Leonardo’s Jerome painting to his own version of Jerome in the Panel of the Relic.

There is another scenario to this coupling which refers to an injury sustained by Leonardo which I shall put aisde for posting at another time.

Hugo has converted the tapering sky section to represent the ears of the donkey and the hare. As for the cut mark, was the panel already in pieces when Hugo had sight of the painting? Possibly, because he has shown a saw blade cutting into the shoulder of his version of Jerome, parallel with the representation of the hare. But in this instance the hare now becomes a blade. Here we see Hugo punning on saw (sore) shoulder and shoulder blade!

Another pun made by Hugo is hare to hair. Leonardo was noted for writing fables and humerous anecdotes in his notebooks. One such fable in Notebook XX is about a razor blade:

The razor having one day come forth from the handle which serves as its sheath and having placed himself in the sun, saw the sun reflected in his body, which filled him with great pride. And turning it over in his thoughts he began to say to himself: “And shall I return again to that shop from which I have just come? Certainly not; such splendid beauty shall not, please God, be turned to such base uses. What folly it would be that could lead me to shave the lathered beards of rustic peasants and perform such menial service! Is this body destined for such work? Certainly not. I will hide myself in some retired spot and there pass my life in tranquil repose.” And having thus remained hidden for some months, one day he came out into the air, and issuing from his sheath, saw himself turned to the similitude of a rusty saw while his surface no longer reflected the resplendent sun. With useless repentance he vainly deplored the irreparable mischief saying to himself: “Oh! how far better was it to employ at the barbers my lost edge of such exquisite keenness! Where is that lustrous surface? It has been consumed by this vexatious and unsightly rust.”
The same thing happens to those minds which instead of exercise give themselves up to sloth. They are like the razor here spoken of, and lose the keenness of their edge, while the rust of ignorance spoils their form.

Fables of Leonardo da Vinci (Book, 1973) [WorldCat.org]

I previously identified the “rustic peasant” as Jan van Eyck representing John the Baptist, but there are two more identities asociated with the figure which I shall reveal in one of my next posts in this series.

Hugo’s Jerome figure also represents cardinal Henry Beaufort, one of the richest men in England during his lifetime. The portrait is adapted from Jan van Eyck’s version of Beaufort, and not just because of his razored haircut. Notice in Van Eyck’s Beaufort (not dressed as a cardinal) the gament’s sleeves lined with sheep-wool – and shaped to represent the ears of a donkey – a reference to Beaufort’s Midas touch at turning everything into riches!

Bringing matters to a head

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This post is the first of a sequence demonstratrating how Hugo van der Goes ‘translated’ iconography from Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished painting of Jerome in the Desert (see previous post) to the Panel of the Relic, the sixth section of the St Vincent Panels.

Hugo utilised Leonardo’s crucifixion sketch to depict the profled head of Christ crucified which is placed facing the pilgrim’s left hand, whose knuckles also echo the head shape Leonardo formed on Jerome’s right shoulder. This similitude links to a passage from Mark’s gospel (15:34) when Jesus was dying on his cross and cried out: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15 :34). Some in attendance mistakenly thought he was calling out to Elijah. The head shape on the knuckle represents Elijah forsaking Jesus and turning away frorm him.

The Father figure is found in the hair section covering the pilgrim’s temple. This is similar to the crucifixion motif formed by Pilate’s ear and hairline in the Panel of he Friars. The connection is one of several made between the two panels and also links to a major theme that runs through all six sections of the painting – the words of the Nicene Creed.

The galero or cardinal’s hat and tassels are not difficult to pick out. The cardinal’s hat is shaped hanging down at the side of Hugo’s figure of Jerome, while the tassels, depicted as thorn tassels in this instance, are attached to the corners of the green cloth.

• More on this in my next post.

Bellini’s mirror of mercy

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The two images above are by the hand of the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini. On the left is detail from his small panel painting St Jerome in the Wilderness now housed at the Barber Institute, Birmingham. On the right is detail from a folio that forms part of the Albi Strabo manuscript gifted in 1459 to René d’Anjou by the Venetian nobleman Jacopo Antonio Marcello. “Good King René” is shown seated on his throne receiving his gift from the kneeling Marcello.

The Jerome painting is dated about 1460, close to the time Marcello despatched his gift to René in 1459. However the folio from the Albi Strabo makes intentional comparisons to Bellini’s St Jerome panel and therefore suggests an earlier date than 1460 for its completion.

More on this and the connection between the two paintings at this link – Albi Strabo – on my website. Scroll to the section “A Golden Mirror”.