Why Did van Gogh Cut Off his Ear?
Even if you’ve never seen a van Gogh painting or know anything about his work I’m SURE you know that he cut off his ear. There are lots of stories and speculation around why and whether or not he sent it to someone. Let’s get to the bottom of it.
Getting Right Into It
On December 23, 1888 artist Vincent van Gogh severed his own left ear in a mysterious act of self-mutilation in the house he was staying at in France. To this day it is unclear why he did this and what caused the event. It’s also not even clear how much of his ear he actually severed, until recently it was generally widely accepted that van Gogh had only cut off a part of his ear, some say just the ear lobe, and not the entire thing. But as you’ll learn, no one really has a clear answer.
First let’s look at the memories and theories of people who were either there at the time or soon after and we can discuss what we think.
van Gogh’s sister in law, Jo Bonger, wrote in her 1914 memoir that he had cut off a piece of his ear. She met van Gogh a few times, before and after the event so she would have seen the scars and this likely would be difficult to forget. However, some say that she would have an interest in perhaps downplaying the severity of the injury to protect van Gogh’s dignity following his tragic death.
Fellow artist Paul Signac visited van Gogh three months after the incident and he later wrote in a letter that it was the lobe of the ear, not the entire ear itself. During his visit he claimed that he saw van Gogh wearing the iconic bandage and hat, so it’s possible he never actually saw the extent of the injury. However, some say that he wouldn’t have been wearing the bandage weeks after the injury and think that maybe Signac is referencing the self portraits where van Gogh is wearing them.
Paul Gachet Jr. (son of one of van Gogh’s best friends in Auvers-sur-Oise) who was 17 at the time, also remembered it only being part of the ear. He wrote in a letter, “it was not all the ear—as far as I remember—it was a good part of the outside of the ear (more than the lobe)” (Bailey, 2020). It must have been traumatic for him to see the scar and, again, not something he’d likely forget.
BUT, there are also witnesses who claim that it was the entire ear that was severed. Here is where we get to an interesting part of the story (finally some context for you). van Gogh’s friend, and fellow artist Paul Gauguin had planned a visit to van Gogh where he was staying in France. They were going to paint the beautiful fall landscapes together and van Gogh was looking forward to it. When Gauguin arrived, the pair argued frequently about various things and it is believed that one such fight, an especially heated one, caused van Gogh to slash his own ear in the aftermath.
Gauguin had left van Gogh’s house a few hours before the injury, following the fight, and checked himself into a local hotel. He returned the following morning just in time to see van Gogh being taken to the hospital. A day later, when Gauguin returned to Paris, he told a friend that van Gogh had “cut his ear clean through”, he repeated this assertion in his 1901 memoir (Bailey, 2020). However, he would have only briefly seen van Gogh that morning and there would have been blood and bandages making it hard for him to see the extent of the wound.
The most compelling memory, in my opinion, is from the doctor, Dr. Félix Rey, who addressed van Gogh’s injury that morning. He even created a sketch of the extent of the damage which shows the entire ear being severed. Presumably this is a reliable source. I should add, some say that this account isn’t trustworthy because of the doctor’s incorrect memory of van Gogh’s physical appearance but here we have a drawing from the time that the wound was examined, I can’t imagine why he’d embellish the injury.
But Why?
Now we come to another frustratingly unclear question, why did he do this to himself? Yes we know that he had just had a heated fight with his friend Gauguin but they had fought before and he had never done anything like this.
As you can probably imagine, there are a ton of different hypotheses for why van Gogh did this but these are the four most prevalent.
This event was the unhealthy coping strategy that van Gogh used to deal with personal problems and his inability to deal with frustrations in his personal relationships. His brother Theo recently got engaged and would now be spending holidays with his fiance's family instead of van Gogh, which upset him, and he was also worried he would be financially cut off as a result (he was financially dependant on his brother at the time). Additionally, his relationship with friend and artist Gauguin, whom he admired greatly, was going south and this caused him pain. Perhaps he was trying to get both Theo and Gauguin to feel bad and come to see him.
He may have done this to get the attention of a local family, the Roulins, whose matriarch he admired (he even had her pose for him for a painting). Perhaps he wanted her attention again.
From more of a psychoanalysis position, some say that van Gogh injured himself in this way as a result of his repressed physical attraction to Gauguin. The Dutch word for ear is close to a slang word for penis and this could be symbolic of self-castration. But, this is honestly not very likely since he regularly visited female prostitutes and nowhere in his writing does he mention homosexuality or an attraction to another man.
This is the one I think is most probable, though it’s also the most vague. van Gogh could have been suffering from an illness, many think borderline personality disorder, which was exacerbated by his drinking habit. In a fit of psychosis, maybe caused by alcohol withdrawal, he inflicted this wound on himself.
Whichever of these theories is correct, it’s reported that van Gogh had no memory of the incident when he woke up in the hospital.
What Happened to the Ear?
I’ve seen two different stories for what happened to the detached ear. The first comes from Dr. Rey, who treated van Gogh in the aftermath of the injury. He says that since it was too late to reattach it he preserved it in a jar in his office but it later went missing. The more widely known version is that van Gogh wrapped the ear in a piece of paper and presented it to a prostitute working at the local brothel. Regardless, no one has any clue where it is now.
This is the very sad reality of van Gogh’s life and his ultimate slide towards his death the following year, 1890. He was the epitome of a tortured artist.
Works Cited
Bailey, Martin. “Did Vincent van Gogh Cut off his Whole Ear? Or Only a Part?” The Art Newspaper. 2020. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2020/04/17/did-van-gogh-cut-off-his-whole-ear-or-only-a-part
Brinkhof, Tim. “The Real Reason Vincent van Gogh Cut off his Ear”. Big Think. 2023. https://bigthink.com/high-culture/vincent-van-gogh-ear/
Cascone, Sarah. “van Gogh May Have Cut Off His Ear During a Bout of Delirium Triggered by Alcohol Withdrawal, a New Study Says”. Artnet News. 2020. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/van-gogh-delirium-triggered-by-alcohol-withdrawal-1920539