The French town of Saintes-Maries is the subject of a series of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in June 1888. When Van Gogh lived in Arles, he took a trip to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the Mediterranean Sea, where he made several paintings of the seascape and town. Though the coastal scenes were similar to what Van Gogh painted in the Netherlands, the work he produced in Saintes-Maries takes on a more experimental, unique style than his earlier work.^[1] Over the course of his week-long visit, Van Gogh made two paintings of the sea, one of the village, and nine drawings.^[2]

In June 1888, Van Gogh took a 30-mile stagecoach trip from Arles to the sea-side fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Van Gogh's week-long trip was taken to recover from his health problems and make some seaside paintings and drawings.^[3] At the time of Van Gogh's visit, Saintes-Maries was a small fishing village with 800 residents. Van Gogh likely stayed at the Pension Coulomb, a short walk from the beach.^[4]

One of the paintings was Van Gogh Museum's Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (F413), which he described to his brother, Theo: "I made the drawing of the boats when I left very early in the morning, and I am now working on a painting based on it, a size 30 canvas with more sea and sky on the right. It was before the boats hastened out; I had watched them every morning, but as they leave very early I didn't have time to paint them."^[5] Some of the work on the painting was finished in the studio, such as capturing the light in the sand, sea and sky.^[3]

The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (F415) depicts three boats floating on a calm sea with special attention to light and color. A fisherman is visible guiding the boat in the painting’s foreground. The painting’s high horizon places emphasis on the vast sea, with varying shades of blue and green standing out against the boats.^[4] Compared to the other dramatic seascape Van Gough painted at Saintes-Maries, this one is calm and quaint, with nonthreatening waves rendered in blue and green.^[2]

The different shades of color Van Gogh used to depict the sea capture light’s interactions with water. He wrote that the "Mediterranean Sea is a mackerel color: in other words, changeable – you do not always know whether it is green or purple, you do not always know if it is blue, as the next moment the ever-changing sheen has assumed a pink or a gray tint." To further emphasize contrast to the color green in the painting, Van Gogh signs his name in large bright red letters.^[5]

The scene is painted with thick impasto, emphasizing the tumultuous waves and uneven sea. To achieve this effect, Van Gogh squeezed paint directly onto the canvas and created texture using his palette knife rather than a traditional brush. This is most visible in the crest of the waves crashing in the painting's foreground. Unlike Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, grains of sand embedded in the paint confirm that Van Gogh created the painting while on the beach, rather than in his studio.^[4]

Fishing Boats at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (F1433) is one of Van Gogh's reed pen drawings of Saint-Maries which he based on his painting The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (F415). The fluid movements of Van Gogh's pen bring an energy to the drawing, not intended to be a mimetic copy. Both his choice of the reed pen and the "placement of tiered-patterned strokes" reflect the influence of Japanese prints. He brings life to the painting through technique. The Pointillist dotted sky accentuates the clouds. Whitecaps are evoked by the vertical lines and horizontal lines portray the calmer sea in the distance.^[6]

Seascape at Saintes-Maries (Fishing Boats at Sea) (F417) was painted six years after Van Gogh wrote that he wished to paint a seaside painting of sand, sea and sky. In this painting the combination of a high horizon and boats close to the top edge of the frame, draw the audience in to the choppy sea in the foreground and center of the picture. He also made three drawings of this composition.^[3]

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  The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F415)
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  Fishing Boats at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Pen and ink and pencil, June 1888, St. Louis Museum of Art (F1433)
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  Seascape at Saintes-Maries (Fishing Boats at Sea), 1888, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia (F417)
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  Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries, Reed pen, 1888, Private collection (F1428)
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  Boats at Saintes-Maries, Reed pen and ink over graphite on wove paper, Late July-early August 1888, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
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  Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries, watercolor, 1888, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (F1429)

In the painting View of Saintes-Maries (F416), Van Gogh painted rows of what is likely lavender from the foreground to the town of Saintes-Maries in the center of the frame, thereby drawing the viewer into the painting. A wall encloses the town in which a large church becomes the focal point. The painting takes upon a three-dimensional appearance, starting with relief-like layers of blue paint in the sky. Finer brushstrokes were used on the field and town buildings.^[3]

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  Three White Cottages in Saintes-Maries, 1888, Kunsthaus Zürich (F419)
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  Street in Saintes-Maries, Reed pen, 1888, Private Collection (F1434)
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  Street in Saintes-Maries, 1888, Private Collection (F420)
• 
  View of Saintes-Maries, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands (F416)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art owns a drawing that Van Gogh made titled The Road at Saintes-Maries. It is also known as Cottages in Saintes-Maries (F1436).^[7]

• List of works by Vincent van Gogh

• Beaujean, D (2000). Van Gogh: Life and Work. Cologne: Konemann. ISBN 3-8290-2938-1.