Fisherman on the Beach

In the summer of 1882 Vincent van Gogh was barely two years into calling himself an artist, and he was drilling himself on the hardest thing he knew, the human figure. He carried his field easel, canvas and paintbox out to Scheveningen, the fishing resort beside The Hague, and painted this lone fisherman on the sand. The sea and beach are laid in with a broad brush and flowing strokes, the man set down with a narrower one. What marks the moment is a new confidence. After a year of concentrated practice he had stopped drawing the figure in first and now placed it straight down with the brush. He was 29, living on money sent by his brother Theo, and studies like this were his daily exercise.