Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his own ear
On this day · 23 December 1888
On a December night in Arles, a breakdown after a quarrel with Gauguin produced art history's most infamous self-injury.
By late 1888, Vincent van Gogh was living in the Yellow House in Arles, in the south of France, painting feverishly and sharing the space — uneasily — with fellow artist Paul Gauguin. The two argued constantly over art and money.
On the night of 23 December 1888, in the grip of a mental breakdown, Van Gogh took a razor to his left ear and sliced off part of it. Wrapped and handed to a woman at a nearby brothel, the gesture stunned the town; the painter was found bleeding the next morning and hospitalized.
Historians still debate whether he removed the lobe or nearly the whole ear.
Gauguin left Arles for good. Van Gogh, recovering, soon painted his unflinching Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. The episode marked the start of the recurring crises that shadowed his final, astonishingly productive years before his death in 1890.
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