Like many other people with an eye for beauty, I love Van Gogh. In fact, this summer I had the pleasure of going to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which is now one of my favorite museums. I loved getting to learn about Vincent’s life and see artifacts from it, as well as getting to see some of my favorite paintings in person, such as The Yellow House and Almond Blossom.Â
I think I’ve always loved Van Gogh’s work, but my interest in him as a person started with middle-school Sophie’s obsession with the book Framed! By James Ponti. These two things don’t seem very connected, but trust me, they are. In the book, Florian Bates is a twelve-year-old with elite problem-solving abilities who regularly aids the FBI on cases with his best friend Margret. In the book, there is a scene where Florian and Margret are in a museum, and Florian suggests that Van Gogh did not cut his own ear off, but it was cut off by a fellow artist, Paul Gauguin. Well, I guess this theory always stuck with me, because when I took a speech class my senior year of High School, I chose my persuasive project to be about convincing my classmates that Van Gogh didn’t cut his own ear off. And hopefully after this article, I’ll have placed a seed of doubt in your mind and convinced you that Paul Gauguin was the true perpetrator.Â
The official story is that after a heated argument outside the yellow house (where Van Gogh lived) with his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin, he cut his ear off in a fit of madness, and Van Gogh gifted it to a woman at a nearby brothel. However, this story has some holes. First of all, Van Gogh’s letters were inconsistent in the days following the accident, as in one he claimed he remembered nothing, and in another he said he clearly remembered severing the ear himself. This alone, however, is not that odd.
Secondly, the morning after the argument, Gauguin packed up and left for Paris, never visiting Van Gogh in the hospital or mentioning it in his writings, which was incredibly odd for Gauguin. He was a detailed and thorough writer, constantly writing about every aspect of his life, yet he didn’t write about this huge incident with Van Gogh.Â
Gauguin was also known for having violent outbursts and had a history of past conflicts. A little-known fact about Gauguin is that he was an extraordinary fencer, and there’s evidence that he had his fencing sword with him for his stay in Arles with Van Gogh. It is quite plausible that he could have had it on his person the night of December 23rd, 1888, when the incident took place.
This evidence is important as Van Gogh’s ear wasn’t poorly cut but sliced cleanly and precisely, which is hard to imagine Van Gogh did in a moment of mental instability with a razor blade. While it is certainly possible, a clean, swift move from a skilled swordsman also seems quite plausible. Van Gogh and Gauguin also reportedly had a toxic relationship and often argued about money, art, and personal values. It’s said that Gauguin looked down on Van Gogh and believed himself to be the superior artist.
The working theory, dubbed the “Pact of Silence” theory, is that during this fight, in either a moment of anger or defense, Gauguin instinctively drew his sword and impulsively or accidentally cut Van Gogh’s ear. With Gauguin’s career on the line, it wouldn’t be completely implausible for Van Gogh to have taken the blame to save his friend’s reputation.
There are many more aspects to this theory that I could delve into. But there’s also definitely research that says this theory isn’t true. While I like to believe this theory, I think we’ll never truly know exactly what took place on that night. But I think one of the best kinds of mysteries are the ones that you can never be fully confident in. More than a century after Van Gogh walked the earth, we’re still talking about him, his art, and what might have happened on that night. So whether or not Van Gogh really cut his ear off, I think the mystery of that night may be more fascinating than the truth, whatever it may be.