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The Feeding of the Five thousand,
Painted by Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier (1480–1524),
Painted circe 1510,
Oil on panel,
© Monasterio de El Escorial, Spain |
| As Jesus stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length. By now it was getting very late, and his disciples came up to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place and it is getting very late. So send them away, and they can go to the farms and villages round about, to buy themselves something to eat.’ He replied, ‘Give them something to eat yourselves.’ They answered, ‘Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to eat?’ ‘How many loaves have you?’ he asked. ‘Go and see.’ And when they had found out they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people together in groups on the green grass, and they sat down on the ground in squares of hundreds and fifties. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing; then he broke the loaves and handed them to his disciples to distribute among the people. He also shared out the two fish among them all. They all ate as much as they wanted. They collected twelve basketfuls of scraps of bread and pieces of fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men. |
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| | Reflection on the Painted Panel
Patinir was a pioneer of landscape painting as an independent genre within the arts. Very few painters before him explored landscape painting. Our painting dated circa 1510, is one of the first paintings in Western art that fully explores to power of such landscapes. In a way, the feeding of the five thousand in the lower third of the panel is only secondary to the vast views that a are depicted. The greens in the foreground turn to greys in the distance; the activity on the river, God the Father in the clouds, the castles is the distance, all make us look first at the upper two thirds of the painting which is pure landscape. Imagine now drawing a giant X from all four corners of the canvas, and what do we find at the intersection? At the very heart of our painting and at the very heart of todays reading: a man praying.
Yes, prayer is central to this magnificent miracle of feeding the 5,000. Jesus wanted to have some quiet time with his disciples to pray, so together they went off on a boat to an isolated place. However, as many people saw them leaving, the news quickly spread between villages (depicted in the background of our painting) and an enormous crowd of five thousand gathered ahead of them; they wanted to see Jesus and hear him preach. Just like for Jesus, finding private time to reflect, pray and help others, as well as doing our daily work, can sometimes seem impossible. We are often tempted in those situations to cancel one of these daily activities. And which one is the easiest to cancel? Prayer. We know that this is the one that we should look after the most, but yet it is often the first one we tend to give up.
Lord Jesus, as you multiplied the five fish and two loaves which were given to you, please also accept our small prayer offerings, so that great things can be miraculously accomplished…
by Patrick van der Vorst |  | |
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