Saint Jerome and the Angel
Simon Vouet
SIMON VOUET, c.1623. OIL ON CANVAS.
Simon Vouet was a Frenchman in Rome, at a time when the city was at the forefront of artistic expression across the world, beginning to move from the High Renaissance into the origins of Baroque. Paris and all of French art, on the other hand, was almost a quarter of a century behind the times by Italian standards and positively provincial to the Roman masters. Vouet spent more than 15 years in Italy; a natural academic he studied the work being made around him, looked back into the recent past and distilled elements from a disparate range of inspirations into his own work. Few informed his work quite as much as Caravaggio, from whom his intense chiaroscuro, meaning contrasted light and shadow, was inspired. Vouet returned to France in 1627, laden with artistic knowledge, and became court-painter for Louis XIII. He helped spread the prophecy of Baroque and usher in the new artistic movement across France, importing the ideas of Rome and single handedly updating his country’s entire artistic culture.