Fishing Boats On the Beach At Les Saintes

Fishing Boats On The Beach at Les Saintes - Marie’s-de-la-Mer Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1888), Arles, June 1888 Oil on Canvas 65 cm. X81.5cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam sky stunning sapphire, sea enchanting emerald sand spectacular turquoise sailboats in a row… waiting for fishermen to board and take them to the deepest sea, where they will triumphantly join other boats which are already sailing! sky magical mauve, cerulean waves crashing on sand amber jade. the long poles on the boats rusty from many years’ humidity from the cold water, and fishes. boats..waiting for their men to board.. breathtaking brides waiting for their gorgeous grooms, with love and anticipation. chartreuse waves roaring and rolling away from the beach, sailboats floating far in the ocean..as if in a trance…. mythical, mystical... alluring...seductive, the ones still waiting for their clan to join them, in the celestial blue! Notes: Top picture is my own painting, done in summer of 2021. My painting is in acrylic. Van Gogh's painting reminds me of Ernest Hemingway's Nobel- winning Novel - The Old Man And The Sea. Van Gogh has described with joy his visit to the Mediterranean shore near Arles at the fishing village of Sainte-Maries, where he painted and drew for several days. It was a new world for him, and he responded to it with his usual eagerness and excitement. In the picture of the fishing boats, two different kinds of vision are united in one work: nature is seen as light and airy, in countless tones of high-keyed color, ever-changing and vibrant through universal contrast; on the other hand, man's objects, the boats, drawn precisely and painted in flat airless tones of primary color. The pearly softness of the seascape becomes a setting for the hard, firmly compartmented colors of the boats. But these boats, disposed along the beach beside one another, overlapping and with crossing masts, make an intricate network of spots and colored lines, which participate in the unstable airy shiftings of the natural tones, in the irregular patterns of the seashore and the waves, and the vast currents of the shapeless clouds. This network of the boats is a typical pattern of Van Gogh's vision; it had appeared already in his Dutch period in the drawings of trees, and as in those early works the branchings of the boat are drawn with unflagging devotion to the detailed individual shapes. The color ranges from the frank primary hues of the boats to tones of iridescence in the sky, with delicate blues, greens, and lavenders, and, on the beach, nameless sandy tones that are blendings of cool, neutralized yellow, tan, and brown. Just as the painting is Impressionist in the subtle discriminations and pairings of cool and warm, so in the application of the paint, there is a corresponding span from thin, flecked, and transparent touches to thick and matte. Courtesy of www.VincentVanGogh.org April 5, 2022 Brian Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest SEVENTH PLACE "Expertise In Verse" Poetry Contest Sponsor:Jaymee Thomas