The image of St. Jerome in the art of Titian. Problems of the study of iconography and the creative method of the artist.

The author examines the most important principles of the pictorial interpretation of the image of St. Jerome in the works of the greatest Venetian Renaissance artist Titian Vecellio (circa 1478–1576). The main attention is paid to the consideration of the iconography of the plot "St. Jerome in the Desert", to which Titian addressed at least six times during his entire career. Of particular interest is the analysis of various plot versions formed on the basis of the original iconographic scheme, and the search for the reasons why they arose. These include two engravings based on drawings by Titian, as well as paintings from the Louvre (early 1530s), the Brera Gallery (1557–1560), from the Escorial and the Thyssen-Bornemissa Museum (about 1575). Addressing this topic also required studying the background of the development of the plot "St. Jerome in the Desert" at the Venetian art school. The study of Titian's works in this article is based on the use of formal stylistic analysis techniques and the iconological method of interpretation. The main importance in the context of the topic is the analysis of the iconography of the artist's paintings. Their study from such positions opens up new ways to explore a number of features of Titian's creative method. In Titian's early paintings, the determining moment in choosing one or another iconographic solution was based usually on aesthetic considerations related to the peculiarities of the coloristic solution or the construction of a spatial composition. In his later works, Titian paid much more attention to the development of certain aspects of the semantic meaning of the plot. Of great importance in this regard is the interpretation of individual details that can emphasize one or another aspect of the pictorial content (for example, the image of an open book in "St. Jerome" from the Escorial). They deepen its semantic meaning, revealing additional facets in the author's understanding of the image of St. Jerome. A thorough iconological analysis of such details helps to establish the points of contact between the artistic idea of the painting and the main trends in the spiritual life of the Late Renaissance. Of particular interest are the references in the painting from the Escorial to the ideas of the Reformation, which have not yet been noted in the scientific literature about the Venetian artist.

Renaissance art, Venice, painting, Titian, Saint Jerome, iconography, style, humanism, manierism, Reformation