Traces of a nasty little storm
View of the Sea at Scheveningen
“The wind was so strong that I could barely stay on my feet and barely see through the clouds of sand.”
Van Gogh made this painting on the beach, in a raging storm. Grains of sand blew into the paint. They can be seen under the microscope.
"But it was a nasty little storm — all the nastier — and all the more impressive the longer you looked, because it made so little noise. […] I’ve been to Scheveningen many times to see it. And came back with two small seascapes. There’s already a lot of sand in the one, but with the second, when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it."
- Letter to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, 26 August 1882
Working outdoors
Van Gogh liked to work outdoors. Conservators often find evidence of this in and on his paintings, like the sand here.
Van Gogh made this seascape on paper. He pinned it to a bare canvas so he had a firm base to work on.
In this enlarged detail of the x-ray of the seascape the many grains of sand in the paint show up as dark points.
Imprint
The imprints of drawing pins that the conservator found in the paint were not made when he was painting on the beach, however, but shortly after. Before the paint was completely dry Van Gogh hung it up with drawing pins. He probably wanted to study the painting, or make a few final additions.
Sketch of the artist at work on the beach at Scheveningen, in a letter to Theo Van Gogh, The Hague, 5 August 1882.
