''Boats du Rhône'' is a series of two sketches (a small one in a letter, the other very large and detailed with

and three oil paintings, listed below, created by the Dutch artist

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

while living in

Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

, France, during August, 1888.

Genesis

Van Gogh described his intention in a letter written August 13, 1888: Painted a few hundred metres behind his Yellow House, where the railway yard abuts the

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

river, he had written his brother

Theo Theo is a given name and a hypocorism. Greek origin Many names beginning with the root "Theo-" derive from the Ancient Greek word ''theos'' (''θεός''), which means god, for example: *Feminine names: Thea, Theodora, Theodosia, Theophania, ...

two weeks earlier: A series was created, as argued by the

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...

'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 lette
697
in which Van Gogh says he has painted a sunset." A leading 20th century van Gogh scholar,

Jan Hulsker Jan Hulsker (2 October 1907, The Hague – 9 November 2002, Vancouver) was a Dutch art historian especially noted for his work on Vincent van Gogh. He studied Dutch literature in Leiden and was promoted with a thesis on the author Aart van der Le ...

explained: This argument has been expanded to:

References

Bibliography

* de la Faille, Jacob-Baart. The Works of Vincent van Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1970. * Hulsker, Jan. The Complete Van Gogh. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980. * Jansen, Leo, Luijten, Hans, and Bakker, Nienke Vincent van Gogh – The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, (Vol. 1-6), Thames & Hudson, 2009, * Naifeh, Steven; Smith, Gregory White. Van Gogh: The Life. Profile Books, 2011. * Tralbaut, Marc Edo. ''Vincent van Gogh'', Macmillan, London 1969, {{DEFAULTSORT:Boats du Rhone Paintings of Arles by Vincent van Gogh 1888 paintings Collection of the Museum Folkwang