St Jerome In Penitence By Francisco Goya

Francisco Goya was a Spanish painter in the 18th century. His artwork St. Jerome in Penitence is one of his typical artworks, and it was made in 1798. It is oil on canvas painting and moderate in size of 75 x 45 inches. According to the Royal Academy Classification, the type of this painting is genre. There is a figure in the center, and the figure posed as desperately praying to cross on left hand in his common daily life. This centered figure position makes more focus on the human figure. St. Jerome was the Christian scholar and not a member of the royal family or a noble family. Therefore, this is not a portraiture. In particular, this artwork has formed part of a series of Goya’s the four Fathers of the Church series. Since these three elements meet the requirements of the Royal Academic classification of genre, this artwork can be defined as genre.
Peter is an artwork that is similar to St. Jerome. Both artworks have a prayer human figure in the center of the artworks and black colored backgrounds. Goya tended to apply smooth and delicate brush touch style into his recent artworks, however, he applied the different style of the brushwork in St. Peter. Instead of smooth brushworks, he applied rough and loose brushworks with the dark colors. The praying actions and objects in both artworks, such as Cross, golden key, and bible, represent the Christianity. Both human figures are posed as praying. The figure in St. Jerome has whole bodies with the diagonal lines, so the position shows movement. But the figure in St. Peter has only a few parts of the body, upper body parts, it does not show movement. The face in the St. Peter reflects the mood and feel of Goya had intended to express. The face in St. Peter had more detailed shades than the rest. On the other hand, in St. Jerome, the fine expressions were applied not only to the face, but also to the whole