St. Jerome Seated near a Pollard Willow

Of the hundreds of prints Albrecht Dürer made, only three were drypoints, in which a needle scratched directly into a copperplate creates velvety, fuzzy lines. In this image of Saint Jerome, Dürer exploited these qualities of drypoint to manifest the natural, spiritual realm of the saint’s hermitage in the wilderness. Jerome pauses from his studies to pray in a setting that buzzes with life. The saint’s isolation and communion with Christ result in spiritual rebirth, symbolized by the bumpy pollard (trimmed) willow, cut to generate new growth.