The Ear of Living Dangerously

Did Vincent Van Gogh really mutilate himself? Or was it his friend Paul Gauguin as a recent book says?

German Academics Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans have come out with a book titled In Van Gogh’s Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence in which they contend it was the temperamental Gauguin who sliced off Van Gogh’s ear after a row outside a brothel. The long-accepted view is that the Dutch painter severed his own ear after a raucous argument with his friend.

In the background of both versions, though, remains the enigmatic figure of the prostitute Rachel to whom, it is said, Van Gogh presented his severed ear neatly wrapped in a cloth.

When Open asked the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam what it thought of the book, press officer Natalie Bos sent a decisive reply. “At the moment Van Gogh cut off a piece of his left ear, he was experiencing one of his ‘bad’ periods: he was unable to sleep and suffered from hallucinations. His self-mutilation has often been described as an act of rage or desperation brought on by Gauguin’s threatened departure. The most likely cause, however, was undoubtedly an approaching bout of illness. Few facts are known about the incident itself: only a brief mention in the local newspaper and Gauguin’s own, much later and rather biased description have survived. Van Gogh himself makes little mention of it in his letters. He could remember almost nothing of what had happened, he claimed, and, perhaps as a way of reassuring them, reported the incident to his family as simply an artist’s fit? (letter to Theo, 7 January 1889). The Van Gogh Museum does not see enough reason to change this opinion.”

So that’s that.

But the possibilities are seductive, Hollywood take note. The tortured artist severing his ear is good stuff for 70 mm, but not nearly as good as a virile, intense lover brawling outside a brothel. In other words, a shift from the sallow-faced Daniel Day Lewis to the craggy Daniel Craig. But the best role would be reserved for Gauguin. The new book portrays him as a spirited fencer. Painter, fencer, lover, genius. Javier Bardem, are you listening?

About The Author

Sohini Chattopadhyay