St Jerome

Saint Jerome, painted around 1635, depicts the Church Father in penitent meditation — a subject Caravaggio himself had treated in several versions and that became one of the most common themes in Caravaggist painting. Jerome's ascetic devotion, symbolized by the skull and the stone for self-mortification, provided the ideal pretext for the dramatic lighting and psychological intensity that defined the movement. Stom's biblical subjects demonstrate the enduring vitality of the Caravaggist tradition in Sicily long after it had faded elsewhere in Europe.

The aged scholar's emaciated body is modeled with merciless naturalism under strong directional light, every rib and sinew visible in a treatment that follows Caravaggio's original of showing saints as real, suffering human beings rather than idealized figures.