Sien and Rachel

While in Amsterdam, I made a vividly enhanced visit to the Van Gogh Museum. Years before, I saw my first Van Gogh painting in person at the LACMA and it was a spiritual experience. The flat 2 dimensional prints in my copy of Gardner's Art Through the Ages did not compare in the slightest. I cried as I stood in front of Vincent's Courtesan (1887). I could finally see the gravity of his painting; imagine the movement of his wrist and forearm in the length of the brush strokes and the amounts of paint saturating the bristles of his brush in the depths and textures covering the canvas. However, this time, in Amsterdam I don't remember such revelations but I was fascinated by what I learned about his life and his loves (or lack thereof). I remember the name of a woman he lived with, Sien. She was an alcoholic and a prostitute. She quite possibly bore him a son, but she was supposedly already pregnant when she met him, it is more likely she only gave him gonorrhea. Rachel was the name of another prostitute in Van Gogh's life. Reportedly when he cut off his hear he wrapped the missing piece and gave it to her.
I found these blue and white ceramic beads in Amsterdam. They remind me of Van Gogh and his obsession with Japanese woodblock prints. I think of the Courtesan and I imagine the women in his life. I wonder if these women drove him to insanity or saved him briefly from it.