Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Tale Behind the Ear

Author's...O.K. you get it. Another articles supposed to be for that group of fake fucks at MARSocial. Well, live and learn right? Either way, I don't say my opinion at the end is truth, exactly, but I did read it in a book called "1001 Historical Facts You Thought You Knew" but as for its veracity I cannot attest. Either way, it's a fun bit of reading. enjoy!

 

Many varying historical accounts of why Van Gogh lost an ear exist. When I was a child, teachers told us that Van Gogh, having gone mad at being rejected by the female love of his life, cut his ear off and sent it to her. Afterward, he admitted himself to an asylum in order to rehabilitate himself of his absinthe addiction, knowing that he was afflicted with temporal lobe epilepsy and the absinthe agitated the disease. For a very long time I accepted this as the truth, I mean, why not? The truth is what we’re told and what we can read is it not? It is what we allow ourselves to be comfortable with.

If only that were true. Life would be so much easier if everyone accepted teachings from scholars and professors and, of course, the preacher at the pulpit and never questioned anything. I have never been able to do that, and maybe that makes me stupid. In fact it does at least to the tune that my life has been difficult because I do not ken facts as truth. Facts become facts because those who control the facts feed them to the masses and the masses accept these facts as truth and will argue with a person who talks against said truth until they fight to the death.

These days, art historians admit that yes, it was indeed Gauguin that cut off Van Gogh’s ear in self defense. Paul Gauguin was an apt fencing enthusiast as well as a painter and Van Gogh, in a fit of rage attacked Gauguin with a knife. Gauguin, in self defense, chopped off Van Gogh’s ear and the artists decided to hush it up and concoct a story.

Leave it some jack like me to check out the dustier books in the library. Contrary to popular belief, libraries do still exist. Back when I did this they were relatively popular.

Historians agree about Gauguin cutting off Van Gogh’s ear.

Historians agree that they concocted a story to cover it up because the two were roommates.

Historians leave out the fact that Van Gogh was bi-sexual and Gauguin was in love with him. What I read, and what makes sense when one studies the subtext between the facts, is that Van Gogh, being a wild, drunken and opium addicted sort, enjoyed his whoring and thought of love as a bit of a joke. One night when Van Gogh was off to visit a whore, Gauguin angrily asked Van Gogh “what is left for me?” When Van Gogh pulled a knife to cut off his own ear, Gauguin had a bit of a freak out and chopped Van Gogh’s ear away. It landed on the steps and Van Gogh said something to the tune of; “Well, you can have that, if you want it.”

Which is true? The question may never be answered to a moral certainty. What we do know is that after a bout of depression and some more paintings Van Gogh decided that his best bet was to lie down in a field of wheat, smoke some opium, and shoot himself in the stomach. It is only too bad the tape recorder had yet to be invented. I would have loved to listen to his dying words.