Boats du Rhône
Quay with Sand Barges | |
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Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
Year | 1888 |
Catalogue | F449 JH1558 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 55.0 cm × 66.0 cm (21.7 in × 26.0 in) |
Location | Museum Folkwang, Essen |
Quay with Sand Barges, Sketch | |
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Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
Year | 1888 |
Catalogue | F1462 JH1559 |
Type | Pen with reed pen |
Dimensions | 48.0 cm × 62.5 cm (18.9 in × 24.6 in) |
Location | The Smithsonian, New York City |
Coal Barges | |
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Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
Year | 1888 |
Catalogue | F437 JH1570 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 71.0 cm × 95.0 cm (28.0 in × 37.4 in) |
Location | Private Collection, Maryland |
Men Unloading Coal Barges | |
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Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
Year | 1888 |
Catalogue | F438 JH1571 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 54.0 cm × 64.0 cm (21.3 in × 25.2 in) |
Location | Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid |
Boats du Rhône is a series of two sketches (a small one in a letter,[1] the other very large and detailed with a reed pen) and three oil paintings, listed below, created by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh while living in Arles, France, during August, 1888.
Genesis
Van Gogh described his intention in a letter written August 13, 1888:
At the moment I’m working on a study [...] boats seen from a quay, from above; the two boats are a purplish pink, the water is very green, no sky, a tricolor flag on the mast. A workman with a wheelbarrow is unloading sand. I have a drawing of it too.[1]
Painted a few hundred metres behind his Yellow House, where the railway yard abuts the Rhône river, he had written his brother Theo two weeks earlier:
I saw a magnificent and very strange effect this evening. A very large boat laden with coal on the Rhône, moored at the quay. Seen from above it was all glistening and wet from a shower; the water was a white yellow and clouded pearl-grey, the sky lilac and an orange strip in the west, the town violet. On the boat, small workmen, blue and dirty white, were coming and going, carrying the cargo ashore. It was pure Hokusai. It was too late to do it, but one day, when this coal-boat comes back, it’ll have to be tackled.[2]
A series was created, as argued by the Van Gogh Museum's curators Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker, because van Gogh "split the subject he describes here into two, perhaps because he realised that a high vantage point and a sunset are very hard to reconcile in a single composition." They conclude, "We do not know exactly when the latter two studies were made; there may be a connection with a letter 697, in which Van Gogh says he has painted a sunset."[3]
A leading 20th century van Gogh scholar, Jan Hulsker explained:
The very detailed large drawing,[4] referred to here must have been made first. In fact, Vincent had already sent off the drawing even while he was still working on the study and it is interesting to note how far he went in trying to simplify it in comparison with the drawing. He left out the small sailing boats in the background and the Rhône bridge [...] In the painting he was particularly concerned with the forceful contrasts of the colours.[5]
This argument has been expanded to:
Since the vantage point in Quay with Sand Barges is completely different from those with a sunset, it should be considered on its own, in particular as a Symbolist or sacred realism[6] homage to Eugène Delacroix's Christ asleep during the tempest. When we consider van Gogh has replicated not only the colour of the sea and the likeness of the boat (with a tricolor flag), but also, as evidenced in his earlier sketch, he has transformed Arles’ cityscape into a mountain, there is little doubt the Delacroix heavily inspired this composition, especially when we read this admonition to his artist friend Émile Bernard, whom he dedicated the painting to, “If the study I’m sending you in exchange doesn’t suit you, just look at it a little longer”[7] repeating this sentiment again in the next paragraph.[8]
See also
References
- ^ a b "660 (665, 524): To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 13 August 1888. - Vincent van Gogh Letters". Vangoghletters.org. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
- ^ "Letter 652". Vangoghletters.org.
- ^ "Letter 652, n. 13". Vangoghletters.org.
- ^ "1556". Vangoghgallery.com.
- ^ Hulsker, Jan, The Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, Harry N. Abrams, 1996
- ^ See Silverman, Debora, Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000
- ^ "698 (702, B19): To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Friday, 5 October 1888. - Vincent van Gogh Letters". Vangoghletters.org. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
- ^ "See Art History Supplement, Vol. 4, Issue 1, January, 2014". Archived from the original on 2014-01-06. Retrieved 2014-01-09.
Bibliography
- de la Faille, Jacob-Baart. The Works of Vincent van Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1970. ISBN 978-1556608117
- Hulsker, Jan. The Complete Van Gogh. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980. ISBN 0-7148-2028-8
- Jansen, Leo, Luijten, Hans, and Bakker, Nienke Vincent van Gogh – The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, (Vol. 1-6), Thames & Hudson, 2009, ISBN 0821226304
- Naifeh, Steven; Smith, Gregory White. Van Gogh: The Life. Profile Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1846680106
- Tralbaut, Marc Edo. Vincent van Gogh, Macmillan, London 1969, ISBN 0-333-10910-4
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works
- Early works (1881–82)
- Portraits (1881–1890)
- Peasant Character Studies (1881–1885)
- Van Gogh's family in his art (1881–1888)
- Sien (1882–83)
- Cottages (1883–1885)
- Water Mill at Gennep (1884)
- Still life paintings, Netherlands (1884–85)
- Old Church Tower at Nuenen (1884–85)
- Amsterdam (1885)
- Wheat Fields (1885–1890)
- Le Moulin de la Galette (1886)
- Still life paintings, Paris (1886–87)
- Montmartre (1886–87)
- Self portraits (1886–1889)
- Outskirts of Paris (1887)
- Asnières (1887)
- Seine (1887)
- Japonaiserie (1887)
- Sunflowers (1887–1889)
- Trees and Undergrowth (1887–1890)
- Copies by Vincent van Gogh (1887–1890)
- Langlois Bridge at Arles (1888)
- Saintes-Maries (1888)
- Boats du Rhône (1888)
- Décoration for the Yellow House (1888)
- The Roulin Family (1888–89)
- Hospital in Arles (1888–89)
- Flowering Orchards (1888–89)
- Almond Blossoms (1888–1890)
- Paintings of Children (1888–1890)
- The Wheat Field (1889)
- Reaper (1889)
- Olive Trees (1889)
- Wheat Fields (1889)
- Butterflies (1889–90)
- Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy (1889–90)
- Auvers size 30 canvases (1890)
- Auvers Double-squares and Squares (1890)
- Lost works by Vincent van Gogh
- Display at Les XX, 1890
- Boy Cutting Grass with a Sickle (1881)
- Meadows near Rijswijk and the Schenkweg (1882)
- The 'Laakmolen' near The Hague (1882)
- Church Pew with Worshippers (1882)
- Woman on Her Deathbed (1883)
- Landscape with Trees (1883)
- Peatery in Drenthe (1883)
- Landscape with Wheelbarrow (1883)
- Drawbridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam (1883)
- Breton Women (1888)
- Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman (1890)
- 87 Hackford Road (1873 or 1874)
- Marsh with Water Lilies (1881)
- Sorrow (1882)
- Portrait of a Man in a Top Hat (1882)
- Torso of Venus and a Landscape (1887)
- Head of a Girl (1888)
- Van Gogh Museum
- Van Gogh House (Drenthe)
- Maison Van Gogh
- Kröller-Müller Museum
- Monastery of Saint-Paul de Mausole
- Vincent van Gogh (1886 painting)
- Portrait of Vincent van Gogh (1887)
- The Painter of Sunflowers (1888 painting)
- Lust for Life (1934 novel)
- Van Gogh (1948 film)
- Lust for Life (1956 film)
- Van Gogh (1956 opera)
- Vincent and Theo van Gogh (1963 statue)
- "Vincent" (1971 song)
- Vincent (1987 film)
- Vincent & Theo (1990 film)
- Vincent and Me (1990 film)
- Dreams (1990 film)
- Vincent (1990 opera)
- Van Gogh (1991 film)
- Vincent in Brixton (2003 play)
- The Yellow House (2007 film)
- "Vincent and the Doctor" (2010 TV episode)
- Loving Vincent (2017 film)
- At Eternity's Gate (2018 film)
- Theo van Gogh
- Wil van Gogh
- Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
- Andries Bonger
- Theo van Gogh (film director)
- Anton Mauve
- Johannes Stricker
- Jacob Baart de la Faille (1928 and 1970; "F")
- Jan Hulsker (1978, revised 1989; "JH")