St. Jerome in the Wilderness

Leonardo studies devotion as anatomy and stone. Jerome kneels in a rocky wilderness, lean and sinewed, lifting his eyes while beating his breast with a stone; a lion lies at his feet. The panel is famously unfinished: thin brown underpaint, open passages, and visible changes trace Leonardo's hand in motion. The rocks form a cruciform rhythm, the head turns with aching focus, and the lion anchors the vision to earth. Likely begun around 1480–1482, the picture later survived in fragments before being reassembled. Its incompletion is a gift—an X-ray of process showing design, correction, and a mind at work.