Abstract
Paul Gauguin wrote to Theo van Gogh, in the latter half of December, 1888, expressing incompatibility of temper with Vincent, requesting funds for the return trip to Paris, and apologizing for his impending leave-taking.1 The quarrels ceased for the moment and Gauguin then asked Theo to regard his previous letter “as a bad dream.” Meanwhile, Vincent waited for Gauguin to make a more definite decision with, in his words, “absolute serenity” (letter 565, December 23). Gauguin’s rendition2 of the days before Christmas is not regarded as completely reliable, but suggests that Vincent accosted him in the street with an open razor. Gauguin spent the night in a hotel. Vincent supposedly returned to the Yellow House on his own, turned the same instrument on himself, and committed the infamous self-mutilation of the left ear.
I shall always believe in the art that is to be created in the tropics … but personally I am too old and, especially if I have a papier mâché ear put on, too jerry-built to go there. Vincent toTheo, letter 574, from Arles, January 28, 1889.
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© 1992 Birkhäuser Boston
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Arnold, W.N. (1992). The Ear-Cutting Affair. In: Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises and Creativity. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2976-6_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2976-6_9
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