Drama at Arles new light on Van Gogh's self-mutilation

Apollo, Sept, 2005 by Martin Bailey

The police at the Yellow House must have initially considered whether Gauguin might have attacked his friend. It does seem surprising that they had simply left the seriously injured Van Gogh on his bed, rather than calling a doctor or sending him to hospital--unless there were legal reasons why he needed detaining or Van Gogh was refusing to be moved. The idea that the police believed him to be dead is hardly credible; this element of Gauguin's later story, which was not in his initial account to Bernard, must be fanciful.

Astonishingly, Gauguin appears to have recorded part of the story in his Arles/Brittany sketchbook, in the form of a caricature of police chief Joseph d'Ornano. Gauguin drew a short man in a bowler hat, facing a turkey (Fig. 11). A tall uniformed official stands behind him. Beneath is the inscription, 'Je souls [sic] le commissaire central!!!' ('I am the head commissioner'). (46) An adjacent caricature shows the police chief puzzling at a painting on an easel. The nature of the sketches might lead one to wonder whether Gauguin could have been depicting another encounter with the police, but they seem to date from December 1888. It has recently been established that a farmhouse and figure on the two previous pages of the sketchbook were used in a painting that Gauguin completed early that month. (47) The caricatures therefore do appear to refer to the morning of 24 December 1888, revealing a surprisingly lighthearted attitude in view of his friend's severe injury.

[FIGURE 11 OMITTED]

Another account of what occurred on the day after the self-mutilation is in the second half of the newspaper report published in Le Forum Republicain:

   The police, informed of these facts
   [that Van Gogh had delivered his ear
   to the brothel], which could only be
   attributed to a poor madman,
   looked the next morning for this
   individual, whom they found in his
   bed, barely showing a sign of life.
   The unfortunate man was urgently
   admitted to the hospital. (48)

Jo Bonger's commentary on the events of the 24 December, written many years later in her memoirs, was extremely brief: 'The police had intervened, had found Vincent bleeding and unconscious in bed, and sent him to the hospital.' (49)

The final account is from Dr Felix Rey (1867-1932), who treated Van Gogh in hospital. They got on well with each other, and Vincent painted a portrait of him in mid-January 1889, in which the doctor's left ear is a prominent red tone (Fig. 15). Dr Rey's memories were recorded in 1928-29, forty years after the events. (50) He claimed that it was Gauguin who arranged for Van Gogh to be treated, although other evidence suggests that it was Roulin who played the key role. Dr Rey said that he had been given the severed ear and had preserved it in a jar in his office, but it had disappeared while he was on a holiday. He also claimed that the whole ear had been severed.

[FIGURE 15 OMITTED]

The evidence about when and how Vincent was taken to hospital is contradictory, but it does seem more likely that it was not in the very early hours of the morning, but around dawn on 24 December, Christmas Eve. Soon afterwards, Gauguin sent a telegram to Theo's gallery in Paris, calling him urgently to Aries. Theo then wrote a short note to Jo: 'I received sad news today. Vincent is gravely ill. I don't know what's wrong, but I shall have to go there as my presence is required.' (51) A few hours later he sent a further letter to his fiancee (possibly after a second telegram from Aries), writing that 'he is very sick, but he might still recover'. (52)