Street in Saintes-Maries

Catalogue numbers: F 420, JH 1462.

At the end of May 1888 van Gogh took a trip to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a fishing village on the Mediterranean coast. He painted here two seascapes (F 415 and F 417) and a view of the village (F 416) along with a number of drawings that he based paintings on once he was back in his studio.

The Street in Saintes-Maries represents van Gogh's greatest commitment at that date to the principle of autonomous colour. In it he lavishly indulges his fondness for contrasts, unusually using all three varieties in the picture. The contrast of red and green dominates the right of the painting, blue and orange, the left, and yellow and violet, the centre. Van Gogh based the painting on one of the sketches (F 1434) he had hastily made in Saintes-Maries, an affectionate drawing of snug cottages. The colours, detached from any real correlatives, were added subsequently in the studio.