Magritte
It is all image, color, dreaming, mind.
It feels so natural.To me.
Series: Favorite Paintings
Catena Saint Jerome in his Study from the National Gallery
Catena St Jerome in his Study
Standing alone before St Jerome.
Wandering through the National Gallery in London, I am always looking for my favorite paintings. One of them is St Jerome in his Study by Catena. Some years ago, I fell in love with this painting. As no other people seemed interested, I could watch St Jerome for a long time without being disturbed. It gave me a wonderful feeling, to stand alone before this painting. I felt totally quiet.
Readers and silence.
There is silence. The bird does not make noise.
The lion is sleeping. St Jerome is reading.
It is this act of reading which is holding my attention. Reading is an interaction between two people, the author and the reader, actually from author to reader. It is a lonely activity. Readers are alone with their thoughts. Before this painting, I forget all the people, walking behind me through the National Gallery rooms.
I am just there with another reader, although he cannot talk with me. That does not matter. Readers like other readers. Readers like silence.
Colors and composition.
The quiet green and brown colors and the geometrical composition with right lines are greatly contributing to the feeling of rest.
Favorite details.
The reading St Jerome in his red and blue gown.
The view through the window of the blue grey mountains and the sea.
And especially the sleeping lion.
Some thoughts.
I love paintings because of the pleasure of lines and colors.
Moreover, they are arousing old and new thoughts and feelings.
Some feelings are reminding of personal life events, sad and happy ones.
New thoughts are sometimes more interesting. They can produce another way of looking, of thinking, about personal life, about humanity, about the world.
Perhaps this painting is representing another meaning than a reading St Jerome. I am sure it has many different meanings. Sometimes that is important, sometimes not.
The painter creates, the art lover re-creates.
I am an art lover. I value art historians and art books highly. Art books show me details, I could overlook. They help me seeing more. However, when I am standing before a painting, it is between the painter and me. It is about what he wants to show and say, and about what I think and feel.
Jerome – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vincenzo Catena | artist | active 1506 – 1531 | The National Gallery, London
Vincenzo Catena | Saint Jerome in his Study | NG694 | The National Gallery, London
Other paintings of St Jerome
Cavarozzi St Jerome in his Study
Bellini St Jerome Reading in the Countryside
Ghirlandaio St Jerome in his Study
When I am listening to music, looking at a painting or a sculpture or reading a book, I know instantaneously that something is happening to me, a kind of flash. Sometimes a memory of an event in the past, sometimes a memory of a friend, but often an indistinct feeling of happiness, of “je ne sais quoi” or even of melancholy. These moments make a deep impression, I never forget. I don’t know if they are influencing my daily life. But I do know they are remaining in my memory and in my thoughts. They can change with time, mood, ageing or personal development. They never fall out of favour.
For instance, when at the age of twelve first reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, I looked at Pierre and Andrei as grown-up men. Young, my greatest admiration was for Pierre with his more deviating way of life. Older, I appreciated more Andrei’s social attitude. Yet each time I reread the novel, I feel involved with both and with Natasha of course.
The same, in some other way, is happening with music like the first time I heard Beethoven’s Eroica on a small recorder or the Violin Concerto by Yehudi Menuhin live.
Or when I am looking at a sculpture by Lehmbruck or a painting by Malevich or a .
Earlier I always tried to understand why some works had such an effect on me. Nowadays, I am just happy with the old familiar memories and the future, not yet known, events. They are like old and new friends. They are part of me.
In this blog I’ll write about my favorite music, art and books.
What I hear, see, read, feel, think and love.
Last week, after a troublesome journey, I arrived at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. After some queuing up in the rain I was going at once to Jan Six. There he was, with his beautiful red coat. I liked him at first sight. His appearance, his posture. His polite impatience, was he going out ? His gorgeous cloths. The many buttons. Most of all I liked his eyes. Were they green ? Friendly but a little absent. He had other things on his mind.
In another room his etch, more casual, Jan Six was leaning against a window-sill. Reading some papers. As if not aware of the portraitist.
A reader lives in another world or age. Forgets the other people around. Can a reader be unaware of the attention when pictured ? Is it possible to picture the very moment of reading ?
Both portraits showed a real person. Someone you could give a hand and speak to. I felt the presence of two people. Jan Six or was it Rembrandt that I saw or maybe, interpreting, me ?
Wandering in Multi Universes of Mind and Life 
