Marine aux Saintes-Maries

In early June 1888 Van Gogh left Arles for a few days at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a small fishing village on the Mediterranean he had never seen before. He stayed barely a week, partly to rest, and it gave him his first real look at the open sea. The boats were hauled up onto the sand every night, so to catch them out on the water he had to work fast. He drew this group very early one morning, just as he was about to head back, then made the painting from that drawing in his room in Arles. You can feel the hurry in it, in a good way. Short loaded strokes stand in for the chop, white foam is dragged across the crests, and the little hulls tip into the swell under a wind you can almost hear. He told his brother Theo the water had the colour of a mackerel, changing so quickly you could never quite say whether it was green or violet or blue.