Last fall, we attended the opening of the “Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers” exhibition at the National Gallery in London. It was the Gallery’s 200th anniversary year, and the exhibition lived up to the pre-event publicity, and then some. The show included almost every painting Van Gogh (1853-1890) did while he was in the south of France from February 1888 to May 1890. The sheer size of the show was staggering, and it included many of Van Gogh’s most iconic works – the Sunflower series, The Yellow House, The Bedroom, The Starry Night, Irises, and so many more.
On of the concierges at our hotel heard us waxing eloquent, and he suggested a book about Van Gogh’s ear, published in 2017. I wasn’t quite sold; a book devoted to the artist cutting off his ear? But my wife surprised me with it as a Christmas present.
It’s an incredible story that reads almost like a detective novel.
Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story, written by Bernadette Murphy, covers the last two-and-a-half years of the artist’s life. It’s the period of his incredible productivity, the short but significant relationship with Paul Gauguin, his confinement at a nearby asylum, his return to his yellow house, his subsequent confinements amid his rapidly disintegrating mental state, and eventually his death in July of 1890. And it includes the story of his ear.
In fact, it was the ear that started Murphy on her Van Gogh quest. She was living not far from Arles, and she became interested in the story of Van Gogh reportedly cutting off his ear, or by the time she started her research, the story that had become cutting off just the lobe.
Bernadette Murphy
The research she undertook was more than impressive; it was mind-blowing. She assembled a data base of people who were living in Van Gogh’s neighborhood in Arles at the time he lived there. She searched what medical records were available and census data. She traveled to Marseilles and Amsterdam. She followed every lead over the course of years. Eventually, she would find the answer to the question about the ear in library archives in California, of all places.
In the process, she discovered far more. She learned the identity of the “Rachel” with whom Van Gogh left the grisly remains wrapped in newspaper. She traced back the history of mental illness in his family. She learned what precisely happened “the night of the ear.” She discovered the errors and mistakes other biographers and art historians had made. Given that this was her first book, I can’t imagine the art critics establishment was particularly pleased. But she found answers to questions many had had in the past and had tried but failed to answer or answer incompletely. What’s clear is that her dogged determination and ability to research served her – and her readers – ultimately very well indeed.
Our concierge said the book might bring us to tears at points. Surprisingly, he was right. This artist, so misunderstood and often ridiculed during his life, became one of the greatest painters ever in his death.
Related:
The National Gallery exhibition catalog, Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, is available at Amazon and other booksellers.
Some Monday Readings
From Out-of-Print to Global Hit: The Surprising Resurgence of Michael McDowell’s Blackwater Novels – Julia Steiner at CrimeReads.
Tides – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.
Lost Boys: State of the Nation (Britain) – Centre for Social Justice.
3 Reasons Your Art Might Fail (and how to ensure it doesn’t) – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.
Who’s Afraid of Tom Wolfe? – Jeannette Cooperman at The Common Reader.
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