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.