The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
16th century
Like several other Dutch painters of the early sixteenth century, Jan Swart was curious about the art of Italy and traveled to Venice in the 1520s. Influenced also by his countryman Jan van Scorel, who had been as far as Rome, Swart combined the typical Dutch palette of acidic bright colors with his notion of an Italianate figure style. He turned the common approach to painting receding landscape into an overly schematic formula. Paint may not have been his natural medium; for most of his career, he was a printer and stained glass designer.
Oil on panel
28 3/4 x 24 1/4 in. (73 x 61.6 cm)
Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund
65.40