Christ at the Sea of Galilee was most likely painted by the Dutch artist Lambert Sustris, working in the circle of Tintoretto in sixteenth-century Venice. The artist employs elongated proportions in his figures, cool and moody colours, and dramatic contrasts between light and dark.

An almost surrealistic landscape—playing somewhat freely with perspective and scale—gives the work a compositional tension. The luminous figure of Jesus stands large in the left foreground; his extended arm and raised finger direct our eyes to the disciples in the boat out on the water. They are minuscule relative to Jesus, suggesting a great distance between him and them. Yet the mountainous waves occupy the intervening space without diminishing in size, largely ignoring the rules of perspective. The effect is a kind of eeriness, even discomfort, and it forces the eye to work to situate the figures.

The cool and dark colours of the land-and-seascape evoke a hostile environment; they are counterbalanced by warm tones in the reassuring figure of Christ, who stands tall and beaming like a lighthouse upon the shore.

If we draw a straight line following Christ’s gaze through his raised finger towards the centre of the painting, we arrive at the top of the fishing net emerging from the water. Christ’s gesture thus probably represents his miraculous command to the seven disciples fishing in John 21:6, ‘Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some [fish]’. At this, John is the first to recognize and announce the resurrected Christ, and Peter leaps into the sea to go to him, the latter here depicted with open arms and his full attention given to Jesus.

The depiction seems to hint that Peter may walk on water; he does not dive in, but takes a step—his right foot resting atop the waves of the stormy sea. There is little distinction between the sea and the land at Christ’s feet, creating the potential impression that Christ, too, walks upon the water. Sustris perhaps refers here to the earlier event described in Matthew 14:25–33, when Jesus invited Peter to walk to him on the waves. In that earlier episode, Peter ventured out, but soon began to sink, whereupon Jesus remarked, ‘Oh ye of little faith, why did you doubt?’. Now, with one foot in and one foot out of the boat, the viewer anticipates another test of Peter’s faith—one which Peter will ultimately pass (John 21).

References

n.d. Christ at the Sea of Galilee, NGA Online Editions, available at https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.41637.html [accessed 11 January 2024]