Van Gogh's Marines
In June 1888, Vincent left Arles for a week's vacation by the sea, in the fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. He brings back boats washed up on the sand, a "mackerel-colored" sea and some of his freest paintings - painted with a knife, right on the beach.
A week by the sea
Van Gogh's marines were almost all born from a single stay: a week in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in June 1888. There, between sand, boats and the Mediterranean, he let go of the bridle to his touch - knife, impasto, pure color - and invents a way of painting the sea unprecedented in his work.
The living room gives around ten drawings and several paintings: Fishing boats on the beach, The Sea in Saintes-Maries, views of the village. These Mediterranean navies respond, in counterpoint, to the dark beaches of his Dutch youth, like scheveningen Beach (1882).
Like Holland... but bluer
To regain health and find subjects, Vincent takes the stagecoach to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a fishing village on the shores of the Mediterranean. He stays at Pension Coulomb, very close to the beach. In one week, he blackened drawing books and painted two large canvases.
The place strikes him: he writes to Théo that the beach is "sandy, without cliffs or rocks - like Holland - without the dunes and with more blue". The village, tiny, is made up of an old fortified church and a barracks: "I don't think there are a hundred houses in this village.""
"Like Holland - without the dunes and with more blue."Vincent to Théo, from Saintes-Maries
A morning of fishermen, finished at the workshop
The most famous painting of the stay shows fishing boats pulled on the sand, red, blue and green hulls, carged sails. Vincent starts it very early in the morning: the boats leave at dawn, he doesn't have time to paint them in the open. He bites them first, then finishes the canvas in the workshop.
"I drew the boats leaving very early, and I am now working on a painting after that", he wrote to Théo. Back in Arles, he takes up the details: the light of the sand, that of the sea, that of the sky - three different whites, three materials.
A "mackerel-colored" Mediterranean
The Sea in Saintes-Maries (F415) is the freest canvas of the stay. Three sailboats slide on a high sea, a fisherman at the front. For the first time, Vincent paints almost entirely with a knife: he presses the color directly onto the canvas, sculpts the swell into impasto.
The sea, he writes, is "mackerel color: in other words, changing - you never know if it is green or purple, you don't always know if it is blue". To counter these cold blues, he signs his painting in large red letters - rare, almost posterable gesture.
Material detail: grains of sand were found caught in the paint. Proof that this canvas, unlike stranded boats, was indeed painted on the beach, in the open air.
From Scheveningen to the Camargue
Scheveningen, 1882
Saintes-Maries, 1888
"Our miserable little boats"
A few weeks after his stay, Vincent made boats a metaphor for his condition as an artist. To Théo, he writes that painters go "to the high seas in our small and miserable boats, isolated on the great waves of time".
At home, the sea is never a simple setting. It is sometimes combat (Dutch fishermen under the storm), sometimes promise (the open and blue Mediterranean), always a mirror of an interior state.
Five views of the sea
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Where did Van Gogh paint his marines?
Especially in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in the Camargue, during a week's vacation in June 1888. He went there from Arles and stayed near the beach.
What is its most famous navy?
Fishing boats on Saintes-Maries beach (F413, 1888), at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam: colorful boats pulled on the sand.
Why is the sea F415 signed in red?
To counter the cold blues and greens of the Mediterranean. Vincent signs The Sea in Saintes-Maries in large red letters - a rare gesture, almost a poster.
How did Van Gogh paint the sea?
At Saintes-Maries, he uses a thick impasto, sometimes painting with a spatula and pressing the color directly onto the canvas. We even found grains of sand caught in the F415 paint.
Did he paint the sea before 1888?
Yes: in the Netherlands, especially the Scheveningen Beach (1882), in a dark and stormy palette very different from the Mediterranean.
Where to see these paintings?
Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), Baltimore Museum of Art, and various private collections according to the paintings.
Go to texts
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - collection.
- The Letters of Vincent van Gogh - Van Gogh Museum scholarly edition /Huygens ING.
- Wikipedia (en) - Saintes-Maries (Van Gogh series), stay of June 1888 and quotes.
- Wikipedia (en) - Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather, Dutch navy of 1882.
- The Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh Museum edition /Huygens ING.
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, collection.
- Wikimedia Commons - Fishing boats on the beach (F413), public domain.
- Wikimedia Commons - La Mer aux Saintes-Maries (F415), public domain.
Vincent van Gogh's works are in the public domain. Short quotes are taken from his letters (Van Gogh Museum edition). Reproductions come from Wikimedia Commons (public domain, CC BY, CC BY-SA).
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