Christ at the Sea of Galilee

Title: Christ at the Sea of Galilee
Artist: Jacopo Tintoretto
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 117 x 169 cm
Date: 1575-80
Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection he appeared to many of his disciples. The third instance of such an appearance is recorded in John 21. While some of his disciples were fishing one morning they spotted a man along the shore. He called to them and provided fishing advice of miraculous proportions. “Therefore the disciple, the one Jesus loved, said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tied his outer garment around him, and plunged into the sea.” (John 21:7)

The Venetian master Tintoretto marshaled the unstable forces of nature to heighten the drama of this scene from John's Gospel; the wind that fills the sail and bends the mast also agitates the sea and sky, and the rocky waves meet the low clouds that blow onto the land. Christ's outstretched arm draws Simon Peter like a magnet, the charge between them creating a dynamic link between the center of the picture and the left foreground. Tintoretto has broken all forms into multiple planes, splintering the light, and frosting the edges with a brush loaded with dry, lead-white oil paint. This use of a thick, white impasto to accent the highlights as in the grassy shore at Christ's feet is a hallmark of Tintoretto's bravura style.

Tintoretto (real name Jacopo Comin; September 29, 1518 – May 31, 1594) was one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school and probably the last great painter of the Italian Renaissance. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso. Indeed, fellow Venetian master Sebastiano del Piombo remarked that Tintoretto could paint in two days as much as himself in two years.

Christ and the Fisherman

Title: Christ and the Fisherman

Artist: Georges Rouault

Medium: Oil on paper mounted on masonite panel

Size: 36.8 x 48.9 cm

Date: 1937

Location: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

After Christ’s temptations in the wilderness, he went to the shores of Galilee and made his first choices of those who would become disciples. Depicted are the events from Matthew 4:18-22, Jesus having gathered Simon, his brother Andrew, and the brothers James and John, proclaiming that he will teach them how to bring in people instead of fish.

The painting is a very intimate affair, the group gathered along the lake shore, Jesus in intimate conversation with one of his new followers. The framing and colors suggest unity of a group preparing to go all over Galilee and spread the good news.

Georges Henri Rouault (27 May 1871 – 13 Feb 1958) was a French Expressionist painter and printmaker. The Christian faith informed his work in his search for inspiration and marks him out as perhaps the most passionate Christian artist of the 20th century. In 1885 Rouault started a short apprenticeship as a glass painter and restorer. This early experience has been suggested as a source of the heavy black contouring and glowing colors of Rouault's mature painting style.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

Title: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee
Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 161.7 x 129.8 cm
Date: 1633
Location: Missing.

The painting depicts the miracle of Jesus calming the waves on the Sea of Galilee as recorded in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4:35-41. Having finished teaching to the multitudes on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus told his disciples to sail with him to the other side. En route, a great storm of wind rose, and the waves beat into the boat so strongly that the boat was filling. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion and they woke him saying “Teacher, don’t you care that we are going to perish?”... And Jesus replied “Why are ye fearful? Have ye not yet faith?”

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15, 1606 – October 4, 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history, his work contributing to a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age. Surprisingly, for painter from a seafaring nation, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee is Rembrandt’s only known seascape.

In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thieves dressed as Boston police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole 13 works of art. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee was among the works of art stolen whose combined value has been estimated as high as $300 million. A reward of $5 million is offered for information leading to the return of the works of art in good condition