Saint Jerome Penitent 

Jonas Umbach made this small etching of Saint Jerome in the 17th century. It's essentially a drawing incised into a metal plate, which is then inked and printed onto paper. Look closely, and you'll see that the image is built up from thousands of tiny lines, all made by hand, using a tool called a burin. The density of these lines creates the areas of light and shadow. Umbach was clearly a master of this painstaking technique; note the textures of the rocks, the saint's skin, even the skull at his feet. The medium of printmaking was relatively new at this time. It allowed for the mass production of images, making art more accessible to a wider audience. This had huge implications, politically and economically, as ideas could be circulated more freely than ever before. So, while this image depicts a solitary religious figure, it's also a product of a rapidly changing, increasingly connected world.