Reaction to his relationship with Sien
Who gave van Gogh his first set of art supplies?
Sien (Van Gogh series)
Due to his relationship with Sien, van Gogh experienced the loss of support and goodwill from family and friends, and he experienced an even more strained relationship with his parents. His teacher and cousin-in-law, Anton Mauve, abruptly ceased his support and tutelage of van Gogh within a few short weeks of van Gogh first meeting Sien, although there were other factors involved as well, not least their mutual melancholy. Hulsker called this a simple tragedy for van Gogh. Likewise, a long-standing family friend, Hermanus Tersteeg, an influential art dealer who taught van Gogh and his brother Theo a great deal about art and literature, and who gave van Gogh his first set of art supplies when he decided to become an artist, although he was always somewhat equivocal in his support, abruptly withdrew at the same time. Van Gogh's relationship with Mauve in truth had scarcely lasted a month. Already by the end of January, van Gogh was writing his brother Theo that he did not always find it easy to get on with Mauve. Shortly after this, they fell out with each other over an issue involving drawing from plaster casts, which Mauve was anxious van Gogh should undertake to perfect his technique. Van Gogh, however, vehemently insisted on drawing from models, and in a fit of pique destroyed some plaster casts of hands and feet that Mauve had given him to make studies from. Following that incident, Mauve said he would have nothing more to do with him for the next two months (i.e. for the rest of the winter). In reality, Mauve, had resolved to break with van Gogh completely. Van Gogh initially blamed Tersteeg for Mauve's indifference, but a chance meeting with Mauve in May made it clear to him that Mauve had definitively broken with him. He described the meeting in a letter to Theo, and in the same letter he revealed his relationship with Sien for the first time and passionately defended it:Van Gogh left Sien the autumn of 1883. Van Gogh went to Drenthe to paint and Sien went back to work as a seamstress, charwoman and possibly as a prostitute. Her children, Maria and Willem, lived with Sien's mother and brother Pieter. In 1901 Sien married a seaman, Anton van Wijk. She committed suicide in 1904 at the age of 54 in Rotterdam's harbor, 14 years after van Gogh's death.