The Penance of St. Jerome 1450

Curator: Look at this incredible piece. It's Piero della Francesca's "The Penance of St. Jerome," dating back to around 1450, an oil painting currently residing in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Editor: What strikes me immediately is the color, that faded parchment color is so striking. Is that tempera on panel, or an early oil technique? It seems very subdued but conveys immense emotional weight. Curator: Della Francesca expertly plays with perspective and geometry. Note how the arrangement of trees in the background leads our eye to a vanishing point, and how St. Jerome's figure creates a triangular composition with the landscape, all lending to this painting a harmonic symmetry. The rocks on the right balance the trees to the left creating stability for the central figure. Editor: I'm more interested in the artist’s craft itself. Oil painting in 1450 was already a global exchange of materials and technologies, with new innovations and artistic experimentation around Europe. I would be curious to understand which workshop he worked in. Look at that striking contrast, juxtaposing a religious and historically relevant theme in an Italian-Renaissance-era landscape. It almost reminds me of the paintings created to embellish devotional altarpieces that were often made with lower quality craftsmanship, which I find interesting considering how unique and striking it is to consider him an old master today. Curator: Well, consider how this meticulous detail also adds symbolic weight to St. Jerome's scholarly nature. Editor: Symbolism always comes after the real, the social, the political. Curator: Ultimately, viewing the world through his gaze and craft gives us the opportunity to study not only the geometry but the composition and use of shadow in great detail. Editor: Indeed. Its blend of emerging materiality makes me reconsider our relationship to value in artworks, challenging the notion that higher religious pieces could not embrace craft methods. Curator: A truly engaging interplay. Editor: Absolutely!