Ember Days

The week after Pentecost contains three ‘ember days’ when many catholics undertake fasts and penance. This ‘summer lent’ has a long tradition in the Church and was known to Saint Jerome, the saint in this image by Jusepe de Ribera.

Ribera depicted Saint Jerome, the early Christian ascetic, priest, and translator of the Bible, numerous times during his career. With harsh realism, Ribera stresses the saint’s role in propagating the sacrament of penance. Head uplifted, Saint Jerome grasps the stone with which he would violently beat his breast, while his left arm cradles a skull, representing the transience of human existence. 

Ribera highlights the physical nature of this penance by contrasting the muscular tension in the saint’s right arm with the worn and wrinkled skin elsewhere on his aged body. The voluminous folds of his cardinal’s robe, rendered in deep chiaroscuro, and the crisp pages of the book to his right — a reference to his scholarly pursuits —further emphasize the frail state of his earthly body.