St Jerome and the Angel

Simon Vouet was the most versatile of all the French painters in Rome in the 1620s. His earliest pictures are the closest to those of Caravaggio, but his art lacked almost all Caravaggio’s sense of drama. Instead, he concentrated on flashy and facile effects, which were, of course, to stand him in good stead at the court of Louis XIII, where he was to become the first French painter to be able to understand and interpret the Italian Baroque. He was good at lighting effects and sharp contrasts of colour. An example of this is the St Jerome and the Angel. This painting is devoid of the drama which marks Caravaggio’s St Matthew and the Angel, Vouet relied much more on his technique of strong lighting and bold brushwork, and was never interested in penetrating the essence of his subject-matter.

Executed during Vouet’s long sojourn in Rome, St Jerome and the Angel, with its extreme contrasts of light and dark, bare interior setting, and three-quarter-length format, has been recognized as one of Vouet’s most Caravaggesque works. Vouet’s angel, a tousled urchin encumbered by voluminous robes, is an insistently robust, physical presence in the tradition of Caravaggio. The obvious comparison with Caravaggio’s first version of the Inspiration of St Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel and his St Jerome Writing demonstrate both Vouet’s debt to Caravaggio and his independence from the older artist.