HEMESSEN, Jan Sanders van
(b. ca. 1500, Hemishem, d. 1556, Haarlem)

St Jerome

-
Oil on panel, 103 x 81 cm
Rockox House, Antwerp

Jan Sanders van Hemessen's religious works are dominated by genre elements. His work therefore represents a significant step in the development of genre painting in its own right. St. Jerome, which originally hung in Rockox's house, is an early work and not entirely typical. In it, he does move away from the traditional rules which artists followed meekly enough in the previous century, and appears to be searching for some kind of originality through exaggeration and ostentation, both in the external appearance of the figure he depicts, and in the emotions he sought to convey.