Fish and Sea Creatures in Painting: 12 Works and Their Meaning
A fish in a painting is either a secret code, a Friday dinner or a technical dare. Early Christians used it as a password, Dutch painters used it to prove they could paint wet scales, and Bosch used sea creatures to build the parts of hell that walk on land.
Twelve fish, briefly
The Greek word for fish spelled out a phrase early Christians used as a sign.
A fish stall painting could be a display of wealth, a religious calendar and a still life at once.
Painting a fish is a test: wet, reflective, silver and dead, all at the same time.
Bosch filled his panels with fish that have legs.
The oyster in a Dutch picture is almost never innocent.
1 | The fish as a password
Ichthys, the Greek for fish, works as an acrostic for a short creed. Early Christians scratched it on walls and tombs where a cross would have been dangerous.
The system is set out in what is iconography.
2 | The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, Raphael (1515)
A cartoon for a tapestry, with boats so overloaded they are sinking and cranes standing on the bank watching. Raphael drew birds and fish with the same attention as the apostles.
More on him in Raphael.
3 | The Dutch fish still life
Whole subgenres were built on herring, cod and flatfish laid on a table with a lemon and a knife. Painting a dead fish convincingly was the fastest way to advertise skill.
More on the genre in what is still life painting.
4 | Bosch and the walking fish
In the Garden of Earthly Delights and the Temptation of Saint Anthony, fish sprout legs, wear armour and carry passengers. The category error is the horror.
More on him in Hieronymus Bosch.
Bosch buries jokes where nobody looks. I pull several of them out in 7 secrets hidden in famous paintings.
5 | The fish market as a genre
Antwerp painters like Joachim Beuckelaer built huge kitchen and market pieces with a small religious scene tucked into the background behind piles of fish.
The sacred story is behind the groceries. More in kitchens and cooks in painting.
6 | Oysters and what they meant
An opened oyster in a Dutch interior is a sexual signal, and everyone at the time knew it. It sits beside a lute, a wine glass and a woman being offered something.
More on the genre in what is genre painting.
7 | Jonah and the great fish
The Bible says a great fish, not a whale. Painters drew it as anything from a serpent to a hybrid, because nobody who painted it had seen one.
Michelangelo put Jonah above the altar in the Sistine Chapel. More on him in Michelangelo.
8 | Sea monsters on maps and in painting
The monsters drawn on sixteenth century sea charts were copied into paintings of storms and shipwrecks. They were understood as reports, not decoration.
More in famous shipwreck paintings.
9 | Turner and the Slave Ship
Fish and a shackled leg in the foreground of a burning sea. Turner used the water’s creatures to say what the sky could not.
More on him in JMW Turner.
10 | The carp in East Asian painting
A carp swimming upstream is perseverance and success, an entire moral in one animal, and it appears on scrolls, screens and prints for centuries.
More on him in Katsushika Hokusai.
11 | Why a fish is hard to paint
Scales are reflective, wet surfaces mirror the room, and a dead fish loses colour in minutes. Painters worked fast, or from a fish they had already painted once.
The good ones show the eye clouding over.
12 | The fish as a calendar
Catholic Europe ate fish on fast days, which was a large part of the year. A table of fish in a painting is telling you the day of the week as much as the wealth of the household.
Count the fish and you can guess the season.
Fish on canvas, questions readers ask
What does a fish symbolise in art? In Christian imagery it is a sign of Christ, from the Greek acrostic ichthys. In still life it also signals fast days, trade and technical skill.
Why so many fish still lifes in Dutch painting? Fish were a major trade and a religious dietary requirement, and painting wet scales convincingly was a way to advertise ability.
Was Jonah swallowed by a whale? The text says a great fish. Painters drew it as a serpent, a hybrid or a monster, since none of them had seen a whale.
What do oysters mean in Dutch pictures? They are a sexual signal, usually placed beside wine, music and a woman being courted.
Where can I see these? The Victoria and Albert for Raphael’s cartoons, the Rijksmuseum for the fish still lifes, the Prado for Bosch.
Look at the eye. A fresh fish has a clear domed eye and a dead one goes flat and cloudy within hours. The painters who got that right were painting from the market, not from another painting.
Two collections worth an hour of your time: the Met and the Rijksmuseum.