If the average person knows one thing about Vincent Van Gogh, it is that the artist was not very himself and one fine day cut off his ear. In the 20th century, this act began to be understood as a sacrifice to art. That is why the kindest St. Petersburg Mitki offered the great Dutchman their own ears (in the form of a painting). So what is happening in the 21st century? There were serious German researchers who claim that everything was different: the ear suffered at the hands of another great artist - Paul Gauguin.

Gauguin arrived in the Provençal city of Arles to visit Van Gogh in October 1888. The artists were friendly by this time, and Van Gogh, a fierce and addicted nature, was literally in love with his exotic and well-traveled comrade and begged him to come. Especially for Gauguin’s arrival, he painted a series of paintings, including “The Yellow House”, “The Poet’s Garden” and others. The unkempt and disorganized Van Gogh quickly turned into a source of irritation for the more bourgeois Gauguin. They tried to get along under one roof for two months, devoting many hours to painting and conversations on a variety of topics, and even visited a neighboring brothel together “for hygienic purposes.”

Van Gogh, in letters to his brother Theo, wrote about grueling “electric” arguments with his friend. Gauguin, in his memoirs, complained about Van Gogh’s “disordered mind” and “lack of logic.” On the eve of the decisive quarrel, a drunken Vincent threw a glass at Paul, and the next evening there was a new skirmish, which ended in blood. It is believed that Gauguin, completely tired of the abuse, left the house on Lamartine Square on the evening of December 23, 1888, and the distraught Van Gogh, left alone, cut off his earlobe with a razor, wrapped it in a newspaper and went to a familiar prostitute, to whom he showed the strange trophy. The next morning the police visited him and took the artist to the hospital. His self-portrait with a bandaged head became no less famous than “Sunflowers” or “Starry Night in Arles.”

Paul Gauguin "Van Gogh at work." Reproduction from wikipedia.org

According to the literary version of this drama, that is, Irving Stone's popular novel Lust for Life, Van Gogh walked behind Gauguin through Arles on December 23, holding an open razor in his hand. Researchers from the University of Hamburg Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, authors of the book "Van Goghs Ohr, Paul Gauguin und der Pakt des Schweigens" ("Van Gogh's Ear, Paul Gauguin and the Vow of Silence") claim that Gauguin left a fencing mask and gloves in Arles and After leaving, he asked Van Gogh to send them to him. Scientists emphasize that the letter does not mention a rapier, but he should have had one: why else would he have gloves and a mask with him? This circumstance, coupled with Van Gogh’s mysterious last phrases addressed to Gauguin, such as “Since you are silent, then I will be silent,” allows researchers to reconstruct the historical quarrel in Arles in a new way.

According to Kaufman and Wildegans, Gauguin did not just leave the yellow house on Place Lamartine on the evening of December 23: he left this refuge with his things to spend the night in a hotel and leave Arles the next morning. Of course, he also had a rapier with him (though they don’t explain why he didn’t take all his fencing equipment). Offended and angry, Van Gogh rushed after his friend, the quarrel broke out again, and Gauguin, trying to keep the Dutchman at a distance, took out a rapier and somehow reached his face and, either in rage or accidentally, cut off his earlobe. Even a small wound in this place causes profuse bleeding (for example, half of the intrigue of Agatha Christie’s novel “A Murder Is Announced” is based on this). Fearing the consequences, Gauguin threw the rapier into the Rhone. Of course, no one began to look for her, because Gauguin convinced everyone that the unbalanced author of “The Potato Eaters” and other masterpieces mutilated himself. Van Gogh remained silent. True, Kaufman and Wildegans believe, his sketches speak for him, one of which shows an ear, and next to it is written the Latin word “ictus” (“strike”), used by fencers.

Irving Stone on Van Gogh

Novel "Lust for Life"

As a result of the mutual vow of silence, which Gauguin kept out of cowardice and selfishness, and Van Gogh out of nobility, contemporaries and descendants considered the Dutch artist crazier than he really was. This is the main conclusion of Kaufman and Wildegans. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam does not yet share their point of view, but considers it worthy of study. In the end, there are a million blank spots left in the artist’s biography; the lion’s share of discussions about his everyday vicissitudes are based on indirect evidence: correspondence with his brother and the memories of his contemporaries do not provide answers to many questions. Van Gogh alone received at least ten diagnoses. Among them are schizophrenia, epilepsy, manic-depressive psychosis, Meniere's disease, and acute intermittent porphyria. In addition, his condition could have been affected by absinthe, lead-containing paints and syphilis acquired in brothels. In general, Van Gogh was definitely not a healthy person. Gauguin, by the way, too, and it’s a pity that Kaufman and Wildegans do not pay enough attention to how Van Gogh’s dramatic act influenced Gauguin. A practically unplowed field for research and interpretation.

Ear as a pledge of friendship