page_title: Sien (Van Gogh series)
section_title: Reaction to his relationship with Sien
hierarchical_section_title: Sien (Van Gogh series) / Reaction to his relationship with Sien
caption_attribution_description: Fishing boat on the beach oil on canvas, 115 cm x 172 cm Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
context_page_description: Vincent van Gogh drew and painted a series of works of his mistress Sien during their time together in the Netherlands. In particular, his drawing Sorrow is widely acknowledged as a masterwork of draftsmanship, the culmination of a long and sometimes uncertain apprenticeship in learning his craft.
  Commonly called Sien Hoornik, Clasina Maria Hoornik lived with van Gogh during much of his time in The Hague from 1881 to 1883. Van Gogh used Sien, a pregnant prostitute, as a model for his work and later took Sien and her daughter into his home. Van Gogh made drawings and paintings of Sien and her daughter, baby and mother over that period, which reflected the domestic life and hardships of the working poor. Their relationship was not accepted by his family or supporters, although his brother Theo did not withdraw his support over it. It did contribute undoubtedly, however, to a split with Anton Mauve, a cousin-in-law and noted painter of the Hague School, who had introduced van Gogh to painting as well as supporting him financially, and whom van Gogh revered.
context_section_description: As a result of his relationship with Sien, van Gogh experienced the loss of support and goodwill from family and friends and his relationship with his parents was further strained. His teacher and cousin-in-law, Anton Mauve, abruptly ceased his support and tutelage within a few 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 Vincent and his brother Theo a great deal about art and literature, and who gave Vincent 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, he was writing his brother Theo that he did not always find it easy to get along 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:
  People suspect me of something... it's in the air... I must be hiding something... Vincent is keeping something back that may not be divulged.. Well, gentlemen, I’ll tell you – you who set great store by manners and culture, and rightly so, provided it's the real thing – what is more cultured, more sensitive, more manly: to forsake a woman or to take on a forsaken one?
  Van Gogh left Sien the autumn of 1883 and went to Drenthe to paint. 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.
caption: Anton Mauve – Fishing boat on the beach, 115 x 172 cm. This was the painting Mauve was working on at the time of his dealings with Van Gogh. It was shown in May at the 1882 Salon. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.[31]
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5462", "Image ImageLength": "3714", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "Fishing barge on the beach in Scheveningen\n*oil on canvas\n*115 x 172 cm\n*signed b.l.: A Mauve . f\n*1883", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "20171/250", "Image YResolution": "20171/250", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:09:07 17:14:25", "Image Artist": "Anton Mauve", "Image ExifOffset": "460", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1204", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1318", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5311", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:12:23 09:00:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:12:23 09:00:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6", "EXIF ApertureValue": "51/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "100", "EXIF SubSecTime": "28", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "28", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "28", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5403", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3653", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1872000/473", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "83200/21", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}