Dr. Rita Wildegans
VAN GOGH’S EAR
The Corpus Delicti
Is a Corpuscle
Translation: Julie Penzell Althoff
In art-historical
research the question of whether Vincent van Gogh’s self-mutilation involves an
ear or just an earlobe is of marginal importance. Hence, this issue is treated
either controversially or rather carelessly. The descriptions of where and what
was actually severed in Arles on 23 December 1888 alternate between the left
and right ear, the entire ear, part of an ear or an earlobe, or – until now the
ultimate degree of speculation – part of a lobe.1 Even an
internationally recognized publication toys with various versions of this
regrettable incident without committing itself to any particular version, thereby
showing the incident’s relative insignificance for historical research.2
When describing portraits, ears are not necessarily always disregarded as a
matter of principle. The same could justifiably be postulated for the
circumstances surrounding the loss of an organ of hearing, all the more so as it
involved an event that was not without consequences in the life of a well-known
and beloved artist. Nevertheless, critical evaluation of the facts associated
with this incident appears to be of no interest to art historians and for more
than a century has been either scrupulously avoided or dismissed as secondary.
All the same, the question of whether an ear or an earlobe were the object of
the artist’s reported act of auto-aggression may serve as the basis for further
hypotheses and, thus, very well be of importance.3
The confusion and
inaccuracies began in 1914 with the three-volume edition of Vincent van Gogh’s
letters to his brother Theo published by Johanna van Gogh-Bongers.4
A detailed biography of the van Gogh family, particularly Vincent’s tragic
personal circumstances, serves as a preamble to the publication. In large
measure the preamble is unreliable and not always able to stand up to scientific
criteria, but it remains to the present day the foundation for many other van
Gogh biographies. These, however, are not immune to the accusation that they
suffer a certain collective blindness, even if the truth behind the
biographical sketch of this family member is neither questioned nor examined
and regarded as authentic. In her honorable efforts to smooth out the family
history Johanna van Gogh-Bonger was demonstrably unable to resist the
temptation to either disregard, re-interpret or play down some events.5
Her portrayal of the ear incident reads as follows and I quote: “In a moment of
extreme agitation – “un accès de fièvre chaude,” as Vincent later calls it
himself – Vincent cut off a piece of one ear and gave it to one of the girls at
the whorehouse.”6 Initially, this statement remained undisputed.
In another van Gogh
biography published in 1923, author Gustave Coquiot cites artist Paul Signac,
who had visited Vincent van Gogh in Arles thirty-four years earlier, as stating
that the accident which occurred on 23 December 1888 involved an earlobe,
referring to Johanna van Gogh-Bonger as a principal witness: “Cependant Paul
Signac bravement vint le voir. Voici le récit de cette visite: ‘J’ai revu Vincent,
nous a-t-il dit, la dernière fois à Arles, au printemps de 1889. Il était déjà
à l’hospice de cette ville. Quelques jours auparavant il s’était coupé le lobe
de l’oreille (et non l’oreille) dans les circonstances que vous savez. (Mme. J.
van Gogh-Bonger affirme, elle aussi, que le lobe seul de l’oreille fut coupé).
Mais le jour de ma visite il était plein de raison et l’interne me permit de
sortir avec lui. Il avait le fameux bandeau et la casquette de fourrure. ’”7
It is a proven fact that Paul Signac’s visit to Arles took place on 23 March
1889, however, Coquiot quotes him as saying that the drama of the ear took
place just days before. The incorrect date may in itself be nothing more than
insignificant negligence on the part of Coquiot, the author, but this cannot be
said of the statement that follows. If indeed Vincent van Gogh was still
wearing the famed bandage and fur hat at the time of Signac’s visit, the
question arises how Signac was even able to judge what was hidden underneath
the bandage. Furthermore, it is worth noting that Coquiot, when not citing
Signac, refers several times in his notes to “ce drame de l’oreille coupée,”
i.e. the drama of the severed ear and not to the severed earlobe.8
Whereas the
biographic descriptions of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and Gustave Coquiot are to a
large extent anecdotic in character, this source material serves as a valuable
addition to the entire scope of Vincent van Gogh’s correspondence which
survives through today and is the creed upon which countless van Gogh
biographies have been based up through the present day. A study carried out by
Victor Doiteau and Edgar Leroy, published in 1928, in no way provided an answer
to the problem.9 The publication contained all of the handwritten reports
in Vincent van Gogh’s medical record by the doctors who treated him. These
records very carefully document Vincent van Gogh’s case history, weekly and
monthly clinical records, as well as a discharge certificate. These records
provide clear evidence. Among other things, all three attending physicians
diagnose that van Gogh cut off his left ear during a severe seizure. In the
preamble to the publication, the attached facsimiles of which unequivocally verify
the evidence that the injury involved the entire ear, the team of authors
express its warm-hearted thanks to Johanna van Gogh-Bonger for her cooperation.
Hence, in the description of what happened on 23 December 1888, the statements
of the three attending physicians are arbitrarily corrected by the authors
Doiteau and Leroy, stating that it was only an earlobe: “Voici ce qui s’était
passé. [sic!] Van Gogh rentre à la maison et immédiatement se coupa l’oreille
juste au ras de la tête. (Vincent se mutila moins grièvement que le dit
Gauguin, il s’entailla seulement le lobute de l’oreille gauche.) Il dut metre
un certain temps à arreter le sang […].”10 Although both authors are
doctors of medicine no explanation is given as to how they have gained certainty
on this issue. One cannot help thinking that the parenthetical sentence, and
its far-reaching consequences, was included after having consulted Johanna van
Gogh-Bonger.
Ronald Pickvance
follows Johanna’s version in a comprehensive study of the time Vincent spent in
Arles. Following a newspaper article published in Forum Républicain on
30 December 1888, Ronald Pickvance’s description of that fateful night reads as
follows: “After a violent quarrel with Gauguin (who had decided to spend the
night in a hotel) van Gogh appeared at 11:30 P.M. at the maison de tolerance No.
1, asked to see a girl named Rachel and handed her his ear with these words: ‘Take
good care of this object.’ Then he disappeared (Le Forum Républicain, 30
December 1888; in fact, van Gogh did not cut off the whole of his ear, but only
the lower part.) After presenting it to Rachel, he returned to his house and
went to bed.”11 The author does not disclose what source leads him
to alter the report in Forum Républicain – based on the prostitute’s
testimony – to the effect that an earlobe was in fact concerned.
At the latest by
then, the portrayal of a petty corpuscle was considered the valid
interpretation. Although there was other and very definite evidence to the
contrary by contemporary witnesses, this interpretation was really never
questioned or scrutinized. The ostensibly serious objection, Vincent would have
bled to death had it been that way is not convincing, as, in fact, he only
narrowly escaped this fate. Vincent van Gogh himself avoided giving an exact
description of his ear injury. Two weeks after the incident he wrote his
brother: “I hope I have just had merely an artist’s fit, and then a lot of
fever after a very considerable loss of blood, as an artery was severed […] my
blood recovers from day to day, and in the same way serenity returns to my
brain day by day.”12 Seated in front of a mirror he paints two
self-portraits with a bulky bandage over his ear, referring only once
throughout his lengthy correspondence with Theo van Gogh, in a letter dated 28
January 1889, to his missing ear in a rather embarrassed yet humorous manner:
“I believe and 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 maché ear
put on) too jerry-built to go there.”13 This sentence, otherwise
hardly worth citing, gains relevance as it documents that if the patient was
considering having an ear made of papier maché evidently more was missing than
just an earlobe. After his sudden departure from Arles Paul Gauguin, the main
eye witness, reports to his friend Emile Bernard: “Vincent était rentré après
mon depart, avait pris le rasoir et s’était tranché net l’oreille.”14
In years to come he
reiterates this statement, repeating it one last time in his autobiography from
1903, completed just shortly before his death: “Il coupa l’oreille au ras de la
tête.”15 Emile Bernard, who attended Vincent van Gogh’s funeral on
30 July 1890 and could have checked this evidence at the latest by this time,
confimed in 1911: “In an unfathomable seizure Vincent cut off an ear giving it
to a friend in a whorehouse. […] They forced open the door the next morning. By
then, the great loss of blood had caused him to lose consciousness.”16
On that fateful night in Arles, the prostitutes called in Alphonse Robert, the
police officer on duty in their neighborhood that evening: “Back then, in 1888,
I was a security guard. I was on duty in the red-light district that particular
day. When I walked past brothel No. 1, […] I’ve forgotten the name of the
prostitute […] in the presence of her mistress the latter gave me the newspaper
in which the ear was wrapped up […] I checked what was in the package and
verified that it was an entire ear.”17 A press release from Arles in
the weekly newspaper Forum Républicain dated 30 December 1888 is based
on the statements of the prostitute and the policeman: “Last Sunday, at about
11:30 P.M., a certain Vincent Vangogh [sic!], artist, born in Holland, appeared
at whorehouse No. 1, asked to see a certain Rachel and gave her his ear with
the words: ‘Take good care of this object.’ Then he disappeared. Notified of
this incident, which could only have been the action of a poor madman, the
police went to the house of the aforementioned person the next morning and
found him lying in bed; he was hardly showing any sign of life. The poor fellow
was taken as an emergency to hospital right away.”18 Once he had
recovered temporarily Vincent van Gogh paid a visit to the prostitute the following
month and apologized for the gift and the shock it had caused.
As a result of a
petition submitted by Vincent’s neighbors, the Chief Police Inspector of Arles,
Joseph d’Ornano, who had already been called to the bedside of the bleeding
Vincent after the fateful night of 23 December 1888, called a court hearing for
re-investigation of the case and wrote in the final report dated 27 February
1889: “All the neighbors were shocked and rightly so, as a few weeks ago this
insane man in a fit of rage cut off his ear, a fit which may occur again and
could be fatal for anybody in his immediate surroundings.”19 Thus, a
severed ear and not merely an earlobe was the cause of his neighbors’ anxiety.
The petition was granted; Vincent was admitted to an institution in Saint-Rémy.
Dr. Urpar, director of the hospital in Arles, writes in his referral form: “Je
soussigné, médecin en chef de l’hôpital certifie, que le nommé Van Gogh
(Vincent) agé de 35 ans, a été attaint il y a six mois de manie aigue avec
délire généralisé. A cette époque il s’est coupé l’oreille.”20 While
this statement is lacking in accuracy from a diagnostic standpoint, it is
absolutely clear as far as the ear is concerned. In an interview with art
historian Benno Stokvis, Dr. Rey, the attending ward physician in Arles, was to
confirm the initial findings later: “After the night Vincent cut off his ear,
Gauguin went to Dr. Rey to enlist his assistance with regard to Vincent and to
arrange for Vincent’s admission to hospital. […] Vincent was taken to hospital
and it was evident that he had lost a great deal of blood. A few days later the
woman to whom he had entrusted the ear turned it over to Dr. Rey who preserved
it in alcohol for a number of years. The ear was lost when Dr. Rey moved to
Paris later on.”21
The surviving
medical reports from the institution Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy, where
Vincent van Gogh spent a little over a year, also clearly and decidedly refute
the myth of the lobe. Dr. Peyron, medical director in charge at Saint-Rémy,
recorded in writing twenty-four hours after Vincent van Gogh’s arrival: “Je
soussigné, docteur en Médecine, directeur de la Maison de Santé de Saint Rémy,
certifie que le nommé Van Gogh, (Vincent) agé de trente-six ans, natif de
Hollande, est actuellement domicilié à Arles, (B.d.R.) entraitement à l’hôpital
de cette ville, a été attaint de manie aigue, avec hallucinations de la vue et
de l’ouïe, qui l’ont porté à se mutiler en se coupant l’oreille.”22
Dr. Peyron repeated the statement that Vincent van Gogh had cut off an ear
while seized by a fit in a “bi-weekly report”: “Ce malade, arreter d’un
hospital d’Arles où il était en traitement depuis plusieurs mois. Il y était
entré à la suite d’un accès de manie aigue qui était survenu brusquement
accompagné d’hallucinations de la vue et de l’ouïe et qui le terrifiaient.
Pendant cet accès il se coupa l’oreille gauche, mais il ne conserve de tout
cela qu’un souvenir très vague et ne peut s’en rendre compte.”23
There are also
contemporary witnesses in Auvers whose honest statements serve to establish the
truth. Adeline Ravoux, the daughter of the innkeeper, recalls: “I was still
very young when Mr. Vincent came to us. He walked with his head inclined
slightly to the side from which his missing ear was cleanly cut off.”24
Tony Hirschig, a fellow lodger of Vincent van Gogh’s at the Ravoux Inn
testified: “I still see him in front of me, his ear severed […].”25
Paul Gachet alias Paul van Ryssel, physician and amateur painter, treated
Vincent van Gogh during the few weeks he spent in Auvers from 20 May 1890 until
his death on 29 July 1890. With the exception of a charcoal drawing of Vincent
van Gogh on his deathbed, which served as a model for an etching and oil
painting, both completed the same year, no other documents concerning Vincent
van Gogh’s illness in the physician’s estate survive. The illustrations by the
hobby painter do however give a hint of the degree of ear injury. As a
photograph from Vincent’s youth and later self-portraits reveal, he had large,
rounded, voluminous auricles (outer part of the ear). Gachet’s etching depicts
in the place where the left ear had been a small spiky triangle of the inner
auricle minus the outer part of the ear; in the oil painting this reference is
completely gone. Only a maroon spot indicates the scar of the wound.
It can be said that
with the exception of the sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, who had
family-related reasons for playing down the injury, not a single witness speaks
of a severed earlobe. On the contrary, the mutually independent statements by
the principal witness Paul Gauguin, the prostitute who was given the ear, the
gendarme who was on duty in the red-light district, the investigating police
officer and the local newspaper report, accord with the evidence that the
artist’s unfortunate “self-mutilation” involves the entire (left) ear. The existing
handwritten and clearly worded medical reports by three different physicians,
all of whom observed and treated Vincent van Gogh over an extended period of
time in Arles as well as in Saint-Rémy ought to provide ultimate proof of the
fact that the artist was missing an entire ear and not just an earlobe.
Annotations
1 Koldehoff, Stefan, Van Gogh – Mythos
und Wirklichkeit. Cologne, 2003: 206.
2 Dorn, Roland, Décoration. Diss
Univ. Mainz,
Hildesheim, 1990 (Studien zur Kunstgeschichte 45): “Van Gogh was found, after
cutting off his ear, unconscious in the Yellow House […],” page 22; “[…] van
Gogh lost control of himself, cut off part of his ear which he gave to a prostitute
at around 11:30 P.M. The next morning, he is found unconscious in the Yellow
House and taken to the hospital in Arles. The circumstances leading to this
incident cannot exactly be reconstructed […],” page 527.
3 The investigation
is part of the research in preparation for a book publication on Vincent van
Gogh’s and Paul Gauguin’s artist community in Arles.
4 Van Gogh,
Vincent, Brileven aan zijn broeder. Published by Jo van Gogh-Bonger. 3
vols. Amsterdam, 1914.
5 Hulsker, Jan, Vincent
and Theo van Gogh. A Dual Biography. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1990: page XIV, page 5.
Ibid. 3, pages 125, 132.
6 Van Gogh, Vincent, Briefe an seinen
Bruder. Published
by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. Berlin, 1928. Vol. 1, preamble: page XLII.
7 Coquiot, Gustave,
Vincent van Gogh. Paris, 1923: page 194: “Paul Signac, however, visited
him. Here the report of his visit: ‛I last saw Vincent, he told us, in
Arles in the spring of 1889. He was already in the municipal hospital. A few
days earlier he had cut off his earlobe (and not his ear) under the
circumstances which you know about. (Madame J. van Gogh-Bonger confirmed that
only the earlobe was severed.) But on the day of my visit he was perfectly
normal and the doctor allowed me to go outside with him. He was wearing the
famous bandage and the fur cap.’” (Translated from French to German by the
author, from German to English by the translator)
8 Ibid. 7: pages 191-192.
9 Doiteau,
Victor/Leroy, Edgard, La Folie de Vincent van Gogh. Paris, 1928.
10 Ibid. 9: page
43: “The following had happened. Van Gogh returned home and then immediately
cut off his ear flush with the side of his head. (Vincent did not injure
himself as badly as Gauguin stated, he only cut off his left earlobe.)
Apparently it took him a while to stop the bleeding […].” (Translated from
French to German by the author, from German to English by the translator)
11 Pickvance,
Ronald, Van Gogh in Arles. Exhibition catalogue. Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, 1984: page 195.
12 Brooks, David.
“The Complete Letters.” The Vincent van Gogh Gallery. Letter 569, 2
April 2009. http://vggallery.com/letters/709_V-T_569.pdf
13 Ibid. 12. Letter 574.
14 Manuscrit du
XIXème Siècle, Nouveau Drouot. Auction in Paris 29 March 1985. Object 48. Letter
from Emile Bernard to Albert Aurier, postmark 1 January 1889: “Vincent, who
returned home after I had left, picked up a razor and cut his ear clean off.”
(Translated from French to German by the author, from German to English by the
translator)
15 Gauguin, Paul, Vorher und Nachher.
Translated
1920 by Erik-Ernst Schwabach. Cologne, 1998: page 29.
16 Erpel, Fritz
(Publisher), Vincent van Gogh. Sämtliche Briefe. Bornheim-Merten,
1985. 6 vols. Vol. 6: page 155.
17 Ibid. 16: page 30.
18 Le Forum
Républicain. 30 December 1888: page 3. Bibliothèque Municipale d’Arles,
Espace van Gogh Médiathèque.
19 Van Gogh à Arles. Exhibition
catalogue Fondation Vincent van Gogh – Arles, 2003. Facsimile: pages 63-65 (report).
20 Ibid. 9: page 32,
col. 3. Facsimile: “As medical director of the hospital I confirm that said van
Gogh, (Vincent), age 35, was taken by an acute manic seizure and delirium. At
that time he cut off his ear.” (Translated from French to German by the author,
from German to English by the translator)
21 Stokvis, Benno, Vincent van Gogh in
Arles, Kunst und Künstler. Vol. 27, September 1929: pages 470-474.
22 Ibid. 9: page 32,
col. 3. Facsimile (cf. 56: “This patient was written sick by the hospital in
Arles where he was treated for several months. He was admitted to this hospital
following a sudden seizure during which he suffered hallucinations affecting
his vision and hearing, thus causing him great anxiety. During the seizure he
cut off his left ear, however, he only has a very vague recollection of this
incident and is unable to explain it.” (Translated from French to German by the
author, from German to English by the translator)
24 Ibid. 16. Vol.
6: page 309.
25 Ibid. 16. Vol.
6: page 308.
