Scripture · Mark 10:16
Mark 4:1-9
Christ Preaching at the Sea
Once again Jesus began to teach beside the sea, and such a large crowd gathered around Him that He got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people crowded along the shore. And He taught them many things in parables, and in His teaching He said, “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Some fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun rose, the seedlings were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings, and they yielded no crop. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it sprouted, grew up, and produced a crop—one bearing thirtyfold, another sixtyfold, and another a hundredfold.” Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Listeners gather among reeds at the water’s edge while a figure in a boat raises both arms toward them.
About the artwork
A man holds a child at the left; nearby are a woman in a straw hat and a girl with folded hands. The boat puts the speaker slightly apart from the listeners, with open water behind him. Loose brushwork leaves faces indistinct, directing attention toward the relationship between the shore and the boat rather than individual portraits.
The figure seen from behind near the center places us among the listeners. Reeds and bodies interrupt the view of the water, while the boat gives the speaker a clear outline against it. Uhde’s loose handling is useful here: our eyes move between near, partly obscuring figures and the distant raised arms, much as attention in a gathering moves toward the person trying to be heard.
Featured in: Luke 5 in Art: The Catch, the Roof, the Tax Booth, and the Verses Worth Remembering
Featured in: Fritz von Uhde’s Bible Paintings: Jesus at the Peasants’ Table, and Why It Was Called Blasphemous
What does Mark 4:1-9 mean?
Mark 4 opens with a crowd so large that Jesus gets into a boat while the people remain on the shore. From there he tells the parable of the sower: seed falls on different kinds of ground, and only some produces a harvest. The teaching repeatedly asks the audience to listen.
Uhde reduces the scale of the crowd to a small, approachable gathering in contemporary dress. He also shows the speaker standing with raised arms, whereas Mark describes Jesus sitting in the boat. The work interprets the act of teaching beside the sea rather than reproducing every physical detail of the account.
Mark 4:1–9 supplies both the waterside setting and the call to attentive listening behind this small gathering.
Sources
Wikimedia Commons — image and catalog references. Probably a study or variant. The Lake Starnberg setting and identification of the artist’s daughters in early accounts apply to the larger finished composition; those model identifications are not established for this image.
Fritz von Uhde’s Bible Paintings: Jesus at the Peasants’ Table, and Why It Was Called Blasphemous. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Mark 4 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Mark 4:1-9.
Hans Rosenhagen — Uhde (1908). Historical catalogue and discussion of the work; historical ownership is not a claim about its present location.
Also from Mark:A ForerunnerThe Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew
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