French School (c. 1870) - Meditation Of Saint Jerome

Oil on canvas. Original canvas. The transcendent fascination exerted by the Old Spanish Masters on the most audacious generation of 19th-century French painters, with such prominent figures as Théodore Chassériau, Léon Bonnat, and the young and impetuous Édouard Manet, was not merely a matter of interest, but constituted a cathartic rediscovery of pictorial truth around 1860. The somber and sublime genius of Velázquez, Ribera, and Zurbarán offered an antidote to academic sentimentality. In this magnificent Saint Jerome, the figure is stripped of all hagiographic convention, revealing a humanity that is both brutal and overwhelming. The work embodies the key elements of the "Spanish manner": the use of immaterial and abyssal backgrounds that erase all spatial reference, concentrating existence in the subject; A predilection for themes imbued with an austere and mystical atmosphere of penitence, and the use of models with frank and realistic features, drawn from the dignity of the common people. Thus, the dramatic light of the Spanish Baroque was reborn in late 19th-century France, legitimizing a new and bold form of figurative art. - Image dimensions without frame: 81 x 100 cm / 107 x 126 cm with a magnificent custom-made Montparnasse-style frame.