Vincent Van Gogh's Love Life

At the age of 28, Vincent met his cousin Kee Vos-Stricker. His feelings for her ran away with him. However, Kee did not see her cousin as husband material. She answered "no, nay, never" to his repeated proposals.

When Vincent was 29 he met the pregnant prostitute Sien and her daughter. After the baby was born they lived happily together for a while. When Sien started working again Vincent could see things were going wrong. He took his painter's gear and left.

"Then I thought to myself, I'd like to be with a woman, I can't live without love, without a woman. I couldn't care a fig for life if there wasn't something infinite, something deep, something real." - wrote Vincent to Theo from Etten, in 1881.

At the age of 31, Vincent moved back in with his parents in Nuenen. Vincent fell in love with the neighbours' daughter Margot. She responded to his avances but a marriage was opposed by Margot's family. The affair ended dramatically when Margot poisoned herself. She survived, but the relationship was beyond saving.

Vincent met Agostina Segatori in Paris at the age of 32. But like his other loves, Agostina turned out to be a source of problems. When she fell ill, Vincent suspected she had had an abortion or miscarriage.

Two years after arriving in Paris, Vincent moved to the Yellow House in the South of France. After so many failed relationships, at the age of 35, Vincent came to accept his fate. His unstable personality proved unsuitable when it came to matters of the heart.

In Arles in the South of France, Vincent found comfort with prostitutes and his 'requited' love for art, nature and his brother Theo. 'If I felt no love for nature and my work, then I would be unhappy' - wrote Vincent to his brother Theo on July 26, 1882.