The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, by Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes by Lambert Lombard
The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, by Francisco de Goya

Matthew 14:13–21; 15:32–39; Mark 6:32–44; 8:1–10; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–15

Loaves and Fishes

Commentaries by Mercedes Cerón

Works of art by Bartolomé Estebán Murillo, Francisco de Goya and Lambert Lombard

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Bartolomé Estebán Murillo

The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 1671, Oil on canvas, 250 x 590 cm, Church of the Hospital de la Caridad, Seville; Album / Art Resource, NY

Holy Charity

Commentary by Mercedes Cerón

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Despite appearances, this is not a straightforward depiction of either the Feeding of the Five Thousand or the Feeding of the Four Thousand. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s painting belongs to a complex iconographic programme commissioned by nobleman Don Miguel Mañara for the church of the Brotherhood of the Holy Charity in his hometown of Seville. There were also two allegorical paintings by Juan de Valdés Leal in the series.

The city was still reeling after decades of suffering caused first by the bubonic plague and later by food shortages that resulted in riots. Mañara chose this passage as an illustration of one of the seven corporal works of mercy, ‘To feed the hungry’.

The narrow format of the canvas, created for a specific location, restricts the suggestion of depth, and the groups of figures are distinguished by the changes in lighting. Murillo’s contribution to the series focused on the hope of salvation through individual good works. Painted in his characteristic warm, calm style, these seven scenes drawn from the Old and New Testaments provided the viewer with a hopeful guide to eternal bliss following the principles of the Counter Reformation. All the paintings emphasize the importance of kindness and compassion.

In contrast with the undefined multitude that populates the background, the figures in the foreground of Murillo’s painting are recognizable as contemporary Sevillian people. Murillo follows the Gospel of John, since he includes a young boy carrying a platter with two fishes as the centre of his composition (John 6:9). A mother holding a small child and an elderly woman watch the miracle unfold. These popular figures appear as witnesses who invite the intended viewers—seventeenth-century Sevillian churchgoers—to identify with the people profiting from Jesus’s teachings. The ‘young lad’ who chose to share his food embodies the generosity that Mañara intended to promote as an example for ordinary citizens.

 

References

Brown, Jonathan. 1970. ‘Hieroglyphs of Death and Salvation: The Decoration of the Church of the Hermandad de La Caridad, Seville’, The Art Bulletin, 52.3: 265–77

Lambert Lombard

The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, First half of 16th century, Oil on panel, 104 x 110 cm, Snijders & Rockoxhuis, Antwerp; inv. 77.35, KBC Bank NV, Antwerp, Museum Snijders & Rockox House

From Far and Wide

Commentary by Mercedes Cerón

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Lambert Lombard delights in the variety that can be found in a large gathering of people. Costumes, footwear, head-dresses, and physiognomic differences are minutely rendered.

The Gospels of Mark and Matthew include two feeding miracles, the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Mark 6:32–44; Matthew 14:13–21) and the Feeding of the Four Thousand (Mark 8:1–10; Matthew 15:29–39). Lombard combined elements from both in an original interpretation arising from a close reading of the biblical texts. In the first miracle, Christ feeds his own people, while in the second his guests are described as ‘Gentiles’ (non-Jewish), which would explain the diversity of this crowd. For example, the black woman seen in profile at right rests her hand on the shoulders of a blond bearded man whose elaborately knotted turban differs from other types of head-dress worn by the men in the background, in a likely allusion to their distinct customs and ethnicities.

His followers are divided into small groups and sheltered under large parasols and makeshift tents set up by the apostles. Jesus’s disciples distribute not only food, but also kind words and comforting gestures. They listen intently to their guests, and they respond sympathetically to their needs, as shown by details such as a hand on a shoulder or a furrowed brow.

The seven baskets lying empty in the foreground by a fountain allude to the leftovers that will be collected once the banquet is finished and the guests are satiated—but a further five baskets can be seen being carried by the apostles in the background. According to all four Gospels, twelve baskets were left after Jesus fed the Five Thousand. Mark, however, mentions only seven baskets in the story of the Feeding of the Four Thousand (Mark 8:8).

The empty baskets refer to the virtue of frugality (waste is avoided), coupled with generosity. Other details in Lombard’s painting, like Jesus’s gesture of looking up to Heaven (Matthew 14:19; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16) and the ‘green grass’ (Mark 6:39) that announces the nearness of spring and the Passover, only appear in the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

 

References

Cousland, J. R. C. 1999. ‘The Feeding of the Four Thousand Gentiles in Matthew? Matthew 15:29–39 as a Test Case’, Novum Testamentum, 41.1: 1–23

Malbon, Elizabeth Struthers.1993. ‘Echoes and Foreshadowings in Mark 4–8: Reading and Rereading’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 112.2: 211–30

Velde, Hildegard Van de and Timothy de Paepe. 2018. The Snijders&Rockox House a Surprising Museum in the Heart of Antwerp (Antwerp: Snijders&Rockoxhuis)

Francisco de Goya

The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 1795–96, Oil on canvas, 146 x 340 cm, Museo Historico Municipal, Cadiz; Museo Historico Municipal, Cadiz, Spain/Bridgeman Images

The People Are Hungry

Commentary by Mercedes Cerón

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This is one of three works painted by Francisco de Goya for a small chapel attached to the church of Our Lady of the Rosary, known as the Holy Cave, in the Andalucian coastal city of Cádiz, in Southern Spain. His depiction of the waterside miracle of the loaves and fishes belongs to a series on the theme of the Eucharist, and it had to fit in a lunette under the dome. The picture is still displayed in its original location, under the inscription ‘They all ate and were satisfied’ (Mark 6:42; Matthew 14:20; Luke 9:17).

In the 1790s, Spanish authorities were fearful of the possible contagion of revolutionary ideas crossing the border from France. In Goya’s picture, the hungry people who had gathered to listen to Jesus do not wait for their food. They approach the group of the apostles begging for something to eat. They can be seen behind Jesus and his companions, some extending their cloaks to receive the bread, some raising their arms in despair, some lowering their heads in shame or raising their eyes in a gesture of supplication, arms crossed over their chests.

Expressive hand gestures guide the viewer seamlessly through the miraculous events in the foreground. Next to an alarmed apostle, shocked at the size of the crowds, his companion prays while Jesus blesses the bread and John raises his hands in awe. At right, another disciple stretches out his arms to calm and welcome the people, leading our attention to the multitude in the background.

In early 1793, while Goya was staying in Cádiz with his friend, the merchant Sebastián Martínez, problems with grain supplies resulted in an increase in the price of bread that led the government to allow the import of cereals from North Africa. The individuals begging for food behind the apostles shared the plight of the people in the bread queues. They bring to the foreground the discontent spreading through the faceless crowds.

As in Murillo’s painting elsewhere in this exhibition, Jesus’s hungry followers here are the artist’s contemporaries.

 

References

Bray, Xavier. 2001. ‘Goya, un pintor religioso ilustrado: las pinturas de la Santa Cueva de Cádiz’, in Goya (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg), pp. 63–82

Torralba Soriano, Federico. 1983. Goya en la Santa Cueva, Cádiz (Zaragoza: Banco Zaragozano)

Bartolomé Estebán Murillo :

The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 1671 , Oil on canvas

Lambert Lombard :

The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, First half of 16th century , Oil on panel

Francisco de Goya :

The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 1795–96 , Oil on canvas

Feeding the Multitude

Comparative commentary by Mercedes Cerón

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Feeding your guests is an act of hospitality. A good host ensures that food is not just sufficient, but plentiful, and that guests are comfortable, sheltered from the wind and the sun. The Bible includes a number of feeding stories in which the motif of the banquet has been read as prefiguring the institution of the Eucharist. Breaking and sharing bread appears in them as a symbol of physical and spiritual nourishment. 

The Feeding of the Five Thousand can be found in all four canonical Gospels (Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:32–44; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–15), and the Feeding of the Four Thousand in two (Mark 8:1–10; Matthew 15:29–39). The miracle emphasizes Christ’s caring concern and compassion, but also his hospitality and his generosity as a host.

The story has precedents and parallels in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, such as Elisha’s feeding of the one hundred (2 Kings 4:42–44). It also—like the Elisha episode—lends itself to being read in Christian tradition as an allegory or foreshadowing of the Eucharist. All but one of the Gospel accounts of this Feeding refer to the four key actions of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving bread, around which the Eucharist is sacramentally structured. John is the only evangelist who omits the breaking of the bread in his account of the miracle, possibly because he regarded this gesture as too obvious to need mentioning.

John also differs from the three other evangelists in his mention of the young boy who shared his own food and made the miracle possible (John 6:8–9). The Gospel of Mark focuses on the relationships between Christ, his concerned disciples, and the hungry followers, eager to be taught and inspired. In Mark’s version, the apostles appear worried but also helpful, and they follow Jesus’s instructions without fully understanding them (Mark 6:37). The reader is thus invited to identify with them and to trust Jesus, even when his words seem incomprehensible.

In all three paintings in this exhibition, the central motif is Christ’s gesture of blessing and the baskets in which food will be distributed and leftovers collected. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo follows John’s version of the miracle, while Lambert Lombard’s interpretation is a more complex blending of narratives, and Francisco de Goya’s sources are less clear. Their approaches to the representation of the crowds are also different. Traditionally, Jesus’s followers are depicted either as a gathering of individuals whose diversity provides the painter with an opportunity to display his originality and skills, or as an undefined multitude.

Artists like Lombard suggest the breadth and universality of God’s message by showing its recipients as individuals of varying ages, genders, status, and ethnicities. In Murillo’s and Goya’s works, lack of definition turns these individuals into a mass, which evinces the magnitude of Christ’s following and the extent of his miraculous powers. Both Lombard and Murillo divide the crowd into small groups: Luke refers to ‘groups of about fifty each’ (9:14–15), while in the Gospel of Mark ‘they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties’ (6:40). The wide sweep of Murillo’s landscape is populated by a large, expectant congregation, which in Goya’s interpretation becomes a barely sketched crowd agitated by a threatening, simmering sense of unrest.    

Three evangelists—Matthew, Mark, and John—mention Jesus’s travel by boat with his disciples to flee the crowds (Matthew 14:13; Mark 6:32–33; John 6:1–3). They sailed across the Sea of Galilee in their failed search for solitude. The background of Lombard’s painting includes a seascape, where a shepherd looking after his flock near the beach recalls Jesus’s comparison of the crowds with ‘sheep without a shepherd’ (Mark 6:34). The landscape is dotted with cottages, farms, villages, and towns where the apostles suggested sending Christ’s hungry followers as the day advanced. The mountains and the lake mentioned by the evangelists still contextualise Murillo’s depiction of the miracle, while Goya entirely dispenses with them to focus on the behaviour of the crowds.

Although the biblical texts only refer to the number of men fed by Jesus and his apostles, women and children are included in the foreground of Lombard’s and Murillo’s paintings, and in the background of Goya’s. Mothers holding their infants could recall traditional representations of Charity. Even in Goya’s depiction of a largely undefined crowd, the diversity of Christ’s followers is celebrated, and a bearded man in a turban and a silk cloak stands next to a figure in a brightly coloured striped shawl, similar to the fabrics worn by Spanish street-sellers.

Everybody is included and anyone is welcome.

 

References

Adams, Sean A. 2011. ‘Luke’s Framing of the Feeding of the Five Thousand and an Evaluation of Possible Old Testament Allusions’, Irish Biblical Studies, 29.4: 152–69

Bassler, J. M. 1986. ‘The Parable of the Loaves’, The Journal of Religion, 66.2:157–72

Carroll, John T. 2012. Luke: A Commentary (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press)

Collins, Adela Yarbro. 2007. Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press)

Davies, W. D. and C. Dale. 2005. Matthew: A Shorter Commentary (London: Bloomsbury Publishing)

Keener, Craig S. 2003. The Gospel of John. A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers)

______. 1999. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.)

Next exhibition: Matthew 14:22–33 Next exhibition: Matthew 16:1–4 Next exhibition: Mark 6:34 Next exhibition: Mark 8:11-13 Next exhibition: Luke 9:18-22 Next exhibition: John 6:16–21

Matthew 14:13–21; 15:32–39; Mark 6:32–44; 8:1–10; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–15

Revised Standard Version

Matthew 14

13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” 18And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” 33And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get bread enough in the desert to feed so great a crowd?” 34And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” 35And commanding the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37And they all ate and were satisfied; and they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 38Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39And sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magʹadan.

Mark 6

32And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. 34As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 35And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; 36send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.” 37But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” 38And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42And they all ate and were satisfied. 43And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

8 In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him, and said to them, 2“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; 3and if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come a long way.” 4And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?” 5And he asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven.” 6And he commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. 7And they had a few small fish; and having blessed them, he commanded that these also should be set before them. 8And they ate, and were satisfied; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9And there were about four thousand people. 10And he sent them away; and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples, and went to the district of Dalmanuʹtha.

Luke 9

10 On their return the apostles told him what they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a city called Beth-saʹida. 11When the crowds learned it, they followed him; and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and cured those who had need of healing. 12Now the day began to wear away; and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away, to go into the villages and country round about, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a lonely place.” 13But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in companies, about fifty each.” 15And they did so, and made them all sit down. 16And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17And all ate and were satisfied. And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

John 6

6After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tibeʹri-as. 2And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. 3Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9“There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?” 10Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.” 13So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. 14When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!”

15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

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