Saint Jerome in the Wilderness is a 1496 painting by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer who was a prominent painter and printmaker in the late 15th century and early 16th century.
St. Jerome here is pictured emaciated in a desertified landscape holding his bible. He has cast off his red robe and cap, the adornments of his high church position. He has foregone all the trappings of material existence and addresses himself to prayer and a direct connection with God in the company of his sole companion, the lion who he relieved of a thorn.
The gold colors used by Dürer; in the flesh of Jerome, the lion, and the sky tell us of the immaterial riches of heaven bestowed on the true and the faithful.
Albrecht Dürer’s St. Jerome in the Wilderness is in the National Gallery of London, United Kingdom.