Notes: The Sea

Notes for the Text

Fifty miles an hour: Although the records show that the wind gusted up to force ten on the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force (55-63 mph) during the storm on August 10-24, the lower figure has been chosen because the Beaufort speeds are calculated at 10 meters (about 30 feet) above ground level. For the same reason, a higher wind speed on the crest of the dune where Van Gogh was positioned has been assumed.

City dwellers who overran: Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 61: The fishing village of Scheveningen had only recently (in the 1870s) become a mecca of bourgeois leisure. The text is meant to convey the resentment of the year-around local inhabitants at the invasion of the much wealthier summer people, who annually paraded their very modern forms of frolic and decadence before a still largely impoverished citizenry. According to Van der Mast and Dumas: “The local population which was very religious did not entirely approve of all of this, but on the other hand, they profited from the newly created jobs” (ibid., p. 63). It is interesting that, despite his claims to being a peintre de peuple, Van Gogh never mentions the crowded, squalid conditions in which the fishermen and their families often lived (whole blocks sharing a single communal toilet), separated from the grand new hotels and fashionable bains by only a narrow isthmus of sand. Always preferring imagery to reality, Van Gogh rarely saw beyond the picturesqueness and “nobility” of poverty. (See, for example, the drawings he made of a fish-drying barn in Scheveningen [Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Heigh (F 938 JH 152), Fish-Drying Barn (F 940 JH 154), and Fish-Drying Barn (F 945 JH 160]), and the watercolor, View of Scheveningen [F 1041 JH 167], painted the same summer.)

Saltwater cures: Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 63: “Doctors were convinced of the wholesome effect of the seawater.” Van der Mast and Dumas make the interesting point that “swimming for fun did not exist yet.” Hotel porches and parlors: Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 63: “[In the late nineteenth-century] the city of The Hague itself built a municipal bathing establishment (Stedelijk Badhuis) called the ‘Grand Hôtel des Bains,’ because French was chic. It was a hotel at the same time. During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century the entertainment factor gradually got the upper hand. The Municipal Bathing Establishment had expanded and there was now for instance a reading room, a theatre room and a ‘salle à diner,’ where people could dine at long tables. Other hotels had also been built, like the Hôtel des Galeries [which existed already in 1882] ... During the day, the guests enjoyed themselves by parading along the esplanade or by sitting in a deck chair.”

Fighting to beach: Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 60: Because Scheveningen did not have a harbor, the fishing boats were designed with flat bottoms so that they could be “stranded” on the beach above the high water line. It is possible that the image depicts an effort to launch the boat before the storm comes ashore. Van Gogh depicted such a scene in another (lost) painting and letter sketch titled Beach and Boats (F 228 JH 227): “The subject of the sketch I made of it is a pink weighing anchor. The horses stand ready to be hitched to the pink before pulling it into the sea” (JLB 260, 9/3/1882). However, the sea in the latter image is calm. Also, the women in View of the Sea at Scheveningen (F 4 JH 187) appear to be rushing to the scene. If the boat were being launched, they would likely be already congregated, as they are in Beach and Boats (F 228 JH 227). Flat-bottomed shrimpers: Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 38: Because the boat depicted has only a single mast and is tied by only a single line, the authors propose that it is “merely a small shrimper,” rather than the larger and more typical bomschuit (“bom”), which Van Gogh mistakenly refers to as a “pink,” a medieval boat of similar design that had disappeared a century before. Fishermen probably never imagined: The fishermen certainly knew about painters. They had long been a favorite subject of Dutch genre painters, especially Jozef Israëls (1824-1911; Dutch artist). (See De Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas, pp. 14, 60-62.) These painters, however, focused on interior scenes and exterior vignettes, and even these were mostly posed in the studio, using cues of costume and attribute to convey the local color. Later Hague School painters like Jacob Maris, Anthon Mauve, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch often painted the Scheveningen fishing boats, but seem to have rarely visited the squalid fishing village itself and certainly would never have braved such harsh weather (ibid., p. 209). Van Gogh may have looked at first like other artists, but he did not act like any artist these fishermen would have previously encountered.

Storm: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop confirm Van Gogh’s report: “Weather reports indicate that this storm system swept over the Netherlands from 20-24 August 1882” (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 36). Despite the common dating of BVG 226 to August 19, Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop indicate that the events Van Gogh describes in that letter (and the two paintings he made in the storm) date from August 21 and 22, and cites Dorn’s suggested redating of letter BVG 226 to the next Saturday, August 26 (Van Gogh wrote at the top of the letter “Zaterdagavond” [Saturday]). This would put it after letter JLB 258, which is dated August 20. (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 39, n. 2.) Note that JLB have redated BVG 226 (8/19/1882) to JLB 259 (8/26/1882) and thus confirm Dorn’s suggestion that the letter was in fact written six days later on August 26.

On the first of those days, according to Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, “the wind was blowing at force 8 but there was no rain” (ibid., p. 36). The reference is to the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force, developed in 1805. “Force 8” refers to wind speed of 39-46 mph (34-40 knots), described as “gale” conditions with the following characteristics: “Breaks twigs off trees; generally impedes progress” (ibid.). On August 22, the second day Van Gogh went to Scheveningen to paint in the storm, the winds gusted at “force 9-10” (ibid.). On the Beaufort Scale (from 1 to 12), force 9 refers to winds of 47-54 mph (41-47 knots), described as “Severe Gale” conditions: “Slight structural damage occurs (chimney pots and slates removed).” “Force 10” refers to winds of 55-63 mph (48-55 knots), described as “storm” conditions: “Seldom experienced inland, trees uprooted; considerable structural damage occurs.” On the Beaufort Scale, force 11 is “violent storm” and force 12 is “Hurricane” (ibid.). The descriptions are based on the Beaufort land-based specifications, not the sea-based specifications. The wind speeds and designations are the same for both. Context: JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “All this week we’ve had gales, storms and rain here, and I’ve been to Scheveningen many times to see it.”

The stretched canvas: BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882. Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop confirm that the surviving painting from this expedition (View of the Sea at Scheveningen F 4 JH 187) was painted on paper (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 41). Exactly how Van Gogh attached the paper to the canvas securely enough to survive the wind, rain, sand, and scraping he describes is a mystery as well as a miracle. The painting was later cut down to eliminate the edges that might have given some clue. Indeed, the entire paint surface was later transferred to canvas, leaving only a few traces of paper. Context: JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: “I don’t work in the lid, but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry.” A little inn: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Context: JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there.”

Gripping his canvas: BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882. Van Gogh writes that the stretched canvas on which he has tacked paper is of “medium size ... which is easy to carry” (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882). The surviving painting (View of the Sea at Scheveningen F 4 JH 187) is 13½ by 20 in. (34.5 by 51.0 cm.), but it has been cropped (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 41). Context: JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: “These studies are of medium size, though slightly larger than the lid of an ordinary painting box, because I don’t work in the lid, but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry.” “The wind blew”: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Context: JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “The wind was so strong that I could barely stay on my feet and barely see through the clouds of sand.” Murky, furrowed sea: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Context: JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “The sea was the colour of dirty dishwater.” “Thick and sticky”: BVG 225, 8/14/1882: Van Gogh writes this about another painting done on the dunes a week earlier, in better weather. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 225, 8/14/1882: “Then I have painted a huge mass of dune ground—thickly painted and sticky.” JLB 257, 8/14/1882: “I’ve also painted a big piece of dune ground—impasted—and densely painted.” “Quick as lightning”: BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882. Context: BVG 223, 8/5/1882 or 8/6/1882: “With long and continuous practice it enables one to draw quick as lightning—and once the drawing is established to paint quick as lightning also.” JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: “With CONSIDERABLE practice and with lengthy practice, it enables one to draw at lightning speed and, once the lines are fixed, to paint at lightning speed.” (Emphasis in original.)

At least twice: BVG 226, 8/19/1882: Van Gogh reports doing two paintings, one on each of two consecutive days of storm activity, August 21 and 22. The painting executed on the first day was only “already a lot of sand,” he reports (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). But the second one was “when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it” (ibid.). Over the years, scholarly opinion has mostly equivocated over whether the surviving painting from this two-day expedition (View of the Sea at Scheveningen F 4 JH 187) is the first or the second one Van Gogh describes. (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 39, n. 5.)

Van Gogh’s descriptions only compound the problem. He writes, for instance, that, on the second day, “the sea came very close to the dunes” whereas a good deal of beach is still visible in View of the Sea at Scheveningen (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). However, he also writes about the second day (apparently): “At that spot there was a fishing-boat, the last in the row, and several dark figures”—exactly the image in View of the Sea at Scheveningen (ibid.). (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 39, n. 7.) Van Gogh says the sea was not as rough on the second day as the first so that there “was less the effect of furrows of ploughed land” (ibid.).

However, this does not mean either that his observation was correct (by his own admission, his visibility was limited on the second day because “the collision between these bodies of water produced a sort of foam like drifting sand that shrouded the foreground of the sea in a haze”), or that he did not paint (or repaint) the sea on the second day to conform to the more interesting “effect” he had seen the previous day (ibid.). Because of this continuing uncertainty, the two paintings and Van Gogh’s description of their creation in this account have been conflated. In any event, Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop’s inference that the figures on the beach in View of the Sea at Scheveningen were there merely “to admire the stormy sea” is worthy of debate (ibid., p. 38). All of the five figures on the left are clearly fishermen’s women (indicated by their white caps) who played an integral role in the outfitting of their men’s boats (with special responsibility for the nets), and no doubt took an economic as well as an emotional interest in the securing of both in a storm. The cart on the right side of View of the Sea at Scheveningen, drawn by one black horse and one white one, may be a net cart (see photograph in Van Eekelen, ed., p. 76). Context: JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “There’s already a lot of sand in the one, but with the second, when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it. The wind was so strong that I could barely stay on my feet and barely see through the clouds of sand. I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there.”

“So covered with a thick”: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Context: BVG 226, 8/19/1882: “One of them is slightly sprinkled with sand—but the second, made during a real storm, during which the sea came quite close to the dunes, was so covered with a thick layer of sand that I was obliged to scrape it off twice.” JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “There’s already a lot of sand in the one, but with the second, when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it.” Repaint the image: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Context: JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there.” “To refresh the impression”: BVG 226, 8/19/1882. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 226, 8/19/1882: “However, I tried to get it fixed by going to a little inn behind the dunes, and there scraped it off and immediately painted it in again, returning to the beach now and then for a fresh impression.” JLB 259, 8/26/1882: “I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there.”

Building dikes to keep the sea at bay: Schuchart, p. 51. Digging canals to drain the bogs: Schuchart, p. 51: “After the dikes and canals, the settlers built platforms, or terpen, bigger and higher, moving pyramid-sized mountains of clay, until they held whole villages.  Next came dams along the riverbanks to prevent saltwater backflow and seasonal flooding” (ibid., p. 52). Invention of the windmill: Schama, p. 38.

The Bakhuyzens: b2706 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 6/10/1874. Anna spelled the name in the Dutch way, “Bakhuijzen.” The name is commonly (mis)spelled: “Backhuijzen.” The Bakhuysens may have been distantly related to Anna’s future husband, Theodorus van Gogh. Van Gogh’s great-great-great-grandfather David (1697-1740) had a brother Gerrit (1700-1752), whose daughter, Jannetje (1731-1796) married Hendrik Bakhuijsen (1729-1812) in 1753.

Henrik’s daughter Geraldine Bakhuyzen went on to become a prominent flower painter and his young son Julius (Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 101) made paintings that Vincent van Gogh would later admire (JLB 338, 4/30/1883; JLB 831, 12/23/1889). In March 1882, when Vincent had resettled in The Hague as an artist, Juilius Bakhuyzen visited him (JLB 241, 7/1/1882). Anna’s later letter suggests that her friend in the Bakhuyzen family was Geraldine’s sister, who is not named in the letter

In 1874, Anna wrote to her son Theo, who was living in The Hague and paid a call on the Bakhuyzens: “I am so glad that you went to see the Bakhuijzen family. They are good people and were always so kind to both Aunt Cornelie and myself.  If you would happen to see them again, please give my regards to Mrs. and Miss Backhuijzen. You know that Miss Backhuijzen’s sister, the painter, drew our Church in Zundert. She lives in Delft and her name is Mrs. de Ridder” (b2706 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 6/10/1874).

Panorama maritime: Pollock and Chong, pp. 48-49. (See also Van Eekelen for a full historical treatment.) De Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas, p. 86: The Panorama opened on August 1, 1881. De Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas, p. 85: “[I]n the nineteenth century most large European cities had at least one [panorama], sometimes more (they had become particularly popular in Paris and London), while travelling panoramas were also made in order to reach the public in smaller places. These travelling panoramas, which were of very variable quality, had given the panorama in general the reputation of a fairground attraction—in other words, a genre from which a great deal of money could no doubt be made, but in which no serious artist should involve himself. Thus, when Mesdag was approached by the Belgian Society in 1880, the reactions of his fellow artists in The Hague were generally unfavourable.”

“To have a look”: BVG 498a, 5/29/1888. Context: BVG 498a, 5/29/1888: “Tomorrow I am going to Saintes-Maries on the seacoast to have a look at the blue sea and the blue sky.”
JLB 618, 5/29/1888-5/30/1888: “Tomorrow I’m going to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer just to see a blue sea and a blue sky.” “At last I have seen”: BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888. Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: “At last I have seen the Mediterranean, which you will probably cross sooner than I shall.” JLB 622, 6/7/1888: “I’ve finally seen the Mediterranean, which you’ll probably cross before me.”

“Little green, red, blue boats”: BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888. Context: BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: “On the perfectly flat, sandy beach little green, red, blue boats, so pretty in shape and colour that they made one think of flowers. A single man is their whole crew, for these boats hardly venture on the high seas. They are off when there is no wind, and make for the shore when there is too much of it.” JLB 622, 6/7/1888: “On the completely flat, sandy beach, little green, red, blue boats, so pretty in shape and colour that one thought of flowers; one man boards them, these boats hardly go on the high sea—they dash off when there’s no wind and come back to land if there’s a bit too much.” Before he could set up: BVG 500, 6/5/1888. Context: JLB 620, 6/5/1888: “It was before the boats cleared off; I’d watched it all the other mornings, but as they leave very early, hadn’t had time to do it.” “They dash off”: BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888 and JLB 622, 6/7/1888: Elements from both translations have been combined. Context: BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: “They are off when there is no wind, and make for the shore when there is too much of it.” JLB 622, 6/7/1888: “… they dash off when there’s no wind and come back to land if there’s a bit too much.”

Rose early: BVG 500, 6/5/1888. Context: JLB 620, 6/5/1888: “I did the drawing of the boats as I was leaving, very early in the morning, and I’m working on the painting, a no. 30 canvas with more sea and sky on the right.” A sketchpad and a pen: BVG 500, 6/5/1888: Vincent writes Theo that he did the drawing of the boats. Context: JLB 620, 6/5/1888: “Tell me, in Paris would I have drawn in an hour the drawing of the boats? Not even with the frame. Now this was done without measuring, letting the pen go.” (Emphasis in original.)

Reasons that remain a mystery: BVG 499, 6/4/1888: Vincent’s report to Theo suggests that a meddlesome priest and a policeman may have played a role in his hasty departure. Vincent makes it clear that he came to Saintes-Maries in search of models (“I’ll ... make a furious attack on the figure” [JLB 618, 5/29/1888-5/30/1888]). Yet all the images from his trip that survive are virtually unpopulated. Except for a distant, indistinct pedestrian and child in Row of Cottages in Saintes-Maries (F 1437 JH 1450) and a few infinitesimal scratches at the shoreline in Beach, Sea, and Fishing Boats (F 1432 JH 1455), the streets, beaches, and houses of Saintes-Maries appear abandoned, as if Van Gogh’s arrival had driven the population into hiding. In a letter to Bernard written soon after his return to Arles, Van Gogh imagined populating his seaside scenes with figures (appropriately decorative): “Imagine a woman dressed in a black and white checked dress, in the same primitive landscape of a blue sky and an orange earth—that would be quite amusing to see, I imagine.” (JLB 622, 6/7/1888.)

Given Van Gogh’s history, it is not a stretch to conjecture that he approached people in Saintes-Maries, undoubtedly women, with the request to model for him. (In the same letter, he reports seeing girls in Saintes-Maries “who made one think of Cimabue and Giotto: slim, straight, a little sad and mystical.”) These unwelcome approaches, as well as Van Gogh’s strange manner, would have alarmed the deeply religious and superstitious locals, prompting a visit from the priest and the police and, perhaps, a pre-emptive request for Van Gogh to leave the town the next day. Such an incident would explain why Van Gogh announces his departure the day before leaving (JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888)—unusual advance notice—in the same letter in which he reports his encounter with the “gendarme” and the “priest too.” It would also explain why he left the three canvases behind rather than waiting a day or two for them to dry sufficiently to be transported (ibid). Finally, it would explain why Van Gogh does not return to Saintes-Maries in July, despite his own eager anticipation of the “open-air bathing” season when, presumably, bathers might be available as models (ibid.). The other possible explanation for the visit from the police, and for Van Gogh’s abrupt departure, is another lodging dispute, hinted at in this boast to Theo: “I board and eat for 4 francs a day—they started by asking 6” (ibid.). However, such a dispute would be less likely to involve the local priest than complaints about behavior of suspect morality. Context: JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: “A very handsome gendarme came to interview me here. And the priest too—people can’t be too bad here, because even the priest seemed almost like a decent fellow.”

All three of the canvases: BVG 499, 6/4/1888. JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888. It should be noted that, only a few days earlier, on the eve of his departure for Saintes-Maries, Van Gogh wrote: “I’m taking two canvases but I’m a little afraid there could well be too much wind to paint” (JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1880). Presumably, he decided at the last minute to take a third canvas. Context: JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: “I’ve brought three canvases and I’ve covered them—two seascapes—a view of the village.” “They are not dry enough”: BVG 499, 6/4/1888. Context: BVG 499, 6/4/1888: “I am forced to leave my three painted studies here, for of course they are not dry enough to be submitted with safety to five hours’ jolting in the carriage.” JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: “I have to leave my three painted studies here, because of course they aren’t dry enough to subject them to 5 hours’ jolting in a carriage with impunity.”

Van Gogh sent a batch of them: For an exhaustive examination of which drawings he sent to Theo and which he kept back (see Vellekoop, p. 121, n. 4). “Moored boats”: Clébert and Richard, p. 35: “Les bateaux amarrés.” Traced the boats’: The size of the boats remains consistent through iterations in all three media (drawing, watercolor, and painting). Vellekoop allows in regard to another painting based on a Saintes-Maries drawing: “It is likely that Van Gogh transferred the composition to the canvas by means of tracing” (Vellekoop, p. 121). Large canvas: Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries, F 413 JH 1460, June 1888, oil on canvas, 25.4 x 31.9 in., 64.5 x 81 cm., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. As soon as he returned from Saintes-Maries, Vincent wrote Theo praising the new “Japanese style” and instructing him to tell Anquetin and Bernard that “I have a painting of boats” (JLB 620, 6/5/1888). Context: JLB 620, 6/5/1888: “Apparently an article on Anquetin has appeared in the Revue Indépendante in which he seems to have been called the leader of a new movement in which Japonism was even more marked, &c. I haven’t read it, but after all—the leader of the Petit Boulevard is without any doubt Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further than Anquetin in the Japanese style. Tell them I have a painting of boats, that and the Langlois bridge could suit Anquetin.” The other paintings: The surviving paintings known to be based on Saintes-Maries sketches are View of Saintes-Maries (F 416 JH 1447), Street in Saintes-Maries (F 420 JH 1462), and Three White Cottages in Saintes-Maries (F 419 JH 1465) (JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888).

“Decorations for middle class”: BVG 512, 7/19/1888. This ambition echoes Van Gogh’s dream in The Hague of having his black-and-white lithographs “printed and circulated, intended for workers’ dwellings, farmhouses, in a word, for every working man” (JLB 289, 12/1/1882). In that dream, as in this present one, the success of his plan hinged on “several parties undertak[ing] to do their utmost, to exert their best efforts for this goal” (ibid.). Context: BVG 512, 7/19/1888: “Nothing would help us to sell our canvases more than if they could gain general acceptance as decorations for middle-class houses.” JLB 644, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888: “Nothing would make it easier for us to place our canvases than to get them widely accepted as decorations in bourgeois homes.” Paintings of Antibes: BVG B7, 6/18/1888. According to Stolwijk and Thomson, Theo bought ten of Monet’s Antibes paintings on June 4, in advance of the show on the entresol, and almost exactly at the same time Van Gogh returned from Saintes-Maries (Stolwijk and Thomson p. 187). Context: JLB 628, 6/19/1888: “At the moment my brother has an exhibition of Claude Monet, I’d very much like to see them.”

“One feels colors”: JLB 620, 6/5/1888: The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 500, 6/5/1888: “I wish you could spend some time here, you would feel it after a while, one’s sight changes: you see things with an eye more Japanese, you feel colour differently.” JLB 620, 6/5/1888: “I’d like you to spend some time here, you’d feel it—after some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently.” Four brightly-colored boats: BVG 552, 10/13/1888: Van Gogh reveals this in a letter written four months after returning from Saintes-Maries. Van Gogh says this in defense of his painting of coaches, Tarascon Diligence [F 478a JH 1605], in October 1888, but he could only have seen the Monet painting during his years in Paris, and therefore knew of it at the time he painted Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries (F 413 JH 1460). It’s possible that Theo described the Monet painting to him, but Vincent’s construction suggests that it was a visual recollection. Context: JLB 703, 10/13/1888: “You used to have a very fine Claude Monet showing four colored boats on a beach.” Pushed his brother to urge: BVG 495, 5/29/1888. ‘s belief that Theo could recruit the dealer Georges Thomas to his plan for the combination with Gauguin was only encouraged in July when Thomas bought a study from Anquetin (JLB 641, 7/15/1888). He pushes Theo the same day: “If you went to see Thomas with these, and added the (I believe there are 4 of them) other drawings in the same format, perhaps we’d pick up a few sous from père Thomas if you explain to him the rather exceptional reasons there are at this moment for our wanting to do a deal” (JLB 640, 7/15/1888). For more on Van Gogh’s relationship with Thomas. Context: JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888: “I have to do things that could get someone like Thomas, for example, to join you in letting those who’ll go here, work here. Then Gauguin would certainly come, I think.” “To join in sending”: BVG 495, 5/29/1888; emphasis added. Context: BVG 495, 5/29/1888: “I must get some stuff done that might persuade somebody like Thomas, for instance, to join you in sending people who would go to work down here. In that case I think that Gauguin would be sure to come.” JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888: “I have to do things that could get someone like Thomas, for example, to join you in letting those who’ll go here, work here. Then Gauguin would certainly come, I think.”

“I wish you could spend”: BVG 500, 6/5/1888. Context: BVG 500, 6/5/1888: “I wish you could spend some time here, you would feel it after a while, one’s sight changes: you see things with an eye more Japanese, you feel colour differently.” JLB 620, 6/5/1888: “I’d like you to spend some time here, you’d feel it—after some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently.” “I think that once again”: BVG 492, 5/28/1888. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 492, 5/28/1888: “But I think that once again you must steep yourself more and more in nature and in the world of artists.” JLB 615, 5/28/1888: “Now I think you need to immerse yourself again even more, both in nature and among artists.” “A year’s leave”: BVG 492, 5/28/1888. Context: BVG 492, 5/28/1888: “It seems to me that what these people ask of you would be reasonable enough if they first agreed to give you a year’s leave (on full pay) to regain your health. You would devote that year to going around and revisiting all the impressionists and the impressionist collectors. That would still be working in the interests of Boussod & Co. And after that you’d set off with a steadier health and nerves, and be able to start fresh business there.” JLB 615, 5/28/1888: “It seems to me that what those gentlemen are demanding of you could, however, be reasonable if they first agreed to give you a year’s leave (on full salary) to regain your health. You’d devote that year to going to see all the Impressionists and connoisseurs of the Impressionists at their homes again. That would still be working in the interests of Boussod & Co. After that you’d go off with your blood and your nerves more settled, and fit to do new business over there.” Recover his health: BVG 492, 5/28/1888. Context: JLB 615, 5/28/1888: “It seems to me that what those gentlemen are demanding of you could, however, be reasonable if they first agreed to give you a year’s leave (on full salary) to regain your health. You’d devote that year to going to see all the Impressionists and connoisseurs of the Impressionists at their homes again.”

“I keep thinking of you”: BVG 543, 9/28/1888. Context: JLB 691, 9/29/1888: “How I think of you and of Gauguin and of Bernard, everywhere and at all times! It’s so beautiful, and I’d so much like to see everyone over here.” “It is so beautiful”: Ibid.

Notes for the Plates

You used to have: BVG 552, 10/13/1888 | JLB 703, 10/13/1888. Just as in literature: BVG W4, second half of June-July 1888 | JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888. I know a Bastien-Lepage: BVG 406, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885 | JLB 500, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885.