St. Jerome in the Wilderness mid-16th century Attributed to Nicolò Boldrini Italian This woodcut illustrates Titian's involvement with printmaking not only as a means of reproducing his drawings but also as a new expressive medium. The subject of Saint Jerome had been a favorite theme in Venetian art since the fifteenth century and was depicted often in paintings by Titian. Here the diminutive figure of the saint is absorbed in a vast, wild landscape appropriate to hermitage and prayer. Nature seems alive in this printnot only do the lions prowl and the deer run, but the trees writhe and twist in the wind, water gushes from an unseen source, the cliffs surge up, and the clouds unfurl in a turbulent sky. The dynamism of the landscape results from the lines that, although carved in wood, swell organically in imitation of Titian's pen strokes and follow the contours of cliffs, earth, and trees. The changing directions of the curvilinear strokes, together with the contrast between areas o