Feeding of the Five Thousand ("Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes")

The miracle is described in all four gospels, but representations of it are more often derived from John's account (6:1–13) which contains elements not found in the other three such as the part played by the apostles Andrew and Philip, and the presence of the young ]ad who brought the loaves and fishes. Matthew and Mark describe two separate occasions of the feeding of the multitude but artists rarely differentiate between them except sometimes in the number of loaves (the first: five; the second: seven), and the number of basketfuls of uneaten scraps that were collected afterwards (twelve; seven). It is related how Christ went up a hillside near the shore of the Sea of Galilee with the disciples and sat down and soon a great crowd of people, some five thousand, gathered round him. Philip, asked by Christ how they might be fed, admitted that their available money would not buy enough bread. Andrew said, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fishes; but what is that among so many?" Christ took the loaves, blessed them, broke them and gave them to the disciples to distribute. The crowd was all well fed and twelve basketfuls of leftovers were collected. The theme is represented in all periods of Christian art from the 3rd century. In early examples Christ has a wand like Moses' which was capable of performing miracles, and with it he touches the baskets of bread. Artists of the Renaissance and later depict a landscape crowded with people seated in groups among which the disciples move, distributing food. In the foreground Christ sits or stands blessing the loaves. Andrew or Philip is in the act of handing bread to him or taking it from the basket held by a small boy. Andrew is old with white hair and a beard. Philip is younger with dark hair and is usually also bearded. The boy may hold up the loaves and fishes in a cloth. The subject was used, like the Last Supper, to decorate the refectories of convents, and was broadly intended as a "type" of the Eucharist. But it also served as an example of a work of mercy - the feeding of the hungry. An artistic convention that seems to have prevailed only in the later 15th century, and more especially in the Netherlands, portrays the crowds in aristocratic dress and includes likenesses of persons in contemporary society.