• Recently Found Sketch Suggests Vincent Van Gogh Cut Off His Entire Ear
    3 replies, posted
[t]http://i.imgur.com/z7tAyZd.png[/t] [quote]Everyone knows that Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear. But since that fateful event nearly 128 years ago, there has been continuing debate among scholars about the severity of that mutilation, which took place in Arles, France, in December 1888. Did he simply slice off a little chunk of his ear, or did he lop off the entire ear? The author and amateur historian Bernadette Murphy, while researching the last period of that Dutch Post Impressionist’s life for a new book, discovered a document in an American archive that may help resolve the issue. A note written by Félix Rey, a doctor who treated van Gogh at the Arles hospital, contains a drawing of the mangled ear showing that the artist indeed cut off the whole thing. The letter and drawing will be displayed for the first time at the Van Gogh Museum’s exhibition “On the Verge of Insanity,” which opens here on Friday and runs through Sept. 25, along with previously unexhibited documents and artifacts that try to provide more detailed evidence about van Gogh’s mental illness. The exhibition will also include about 25 paintings and other objects, like a corroded revolver that van Gogh may have used to kill himself, museum officials say. These will try to explore, in particular, the final stretch of his life while his troubles escalated, from the ear-cutting incident to July 29, 1890, when he apparently committed suicide in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The subject of the artist’s mental state has always fascinated people who admire his art, but until now the Van Gogh Museum, which contains the largest collection of his work in the world, has not directly addressed the subject. Until recently, the museum has focused on van Gogh’s aesthetic and technical progression, but interest in his biography is driving a different approach to exhibitions.[/quote] [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/arts/international/van-gogh-ear-amsterdam.html?_r=0]NY Times[/url] [t]http://i.imgur.com/PUipcyK.jpg[/t] In 1889 Van Gogh painted Rey's portrait, as a gift for his service to the mentally ill artist. Rey, while appreciative of the gift, did not really like the painting and used it to repair a hole in a chicken coop. It now hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
i thought it was actually cut off by gauguin during an argument?
[QUOTE=TheDrunkenOne;50702972]i thought it was actually cut off by gauguin during an argument?[/QUOTE] If you mean the hypothesis proposed by those two german historians, wasn't it still just a hypothesis with no actual evidence? It's still a contested point as far as I know among art historians, who said at the time without more evidence, it may or may not be true.
[quote]As the pair approached a bordello, their row intensified, and Gauguin cut off Van Gogh's left earlobe with his sword – either in anger or self-defence. He then threw the weapon in the Rhône.[/quote] Apparently, Gauguin was Samurai Jack-grade swordsman.
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