Vincent van Gogh: Self-portrait with bandaged ear, 1889

10 SELECTED SELF-PORTRAITS

(in chronological order)

Albert Dürer: Self-portrait as an Ecce Homo, c.1500

Leonardo da Vinci: Self-portrait, c.1512

Rembrandt van Rijn: Self-portrait, 1659

Vincent van Gogh: Self-portrait with bandaged ear, 1889

Pablo Picasso: Self-portrait, 1901

Egon Schiele: Self-portrait, 1911

Max Beckmann: Self-portrait with glass of champagne, 1919

Frida Kahlo: The broken column (Self-portrait), 1944

Francis Bacon: Self-portrait, 1971

Jean-Michelle Basquiat: Self-portrait, 1982

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4. VINCENT VAN GOGH: “Self-portrait with bandaged ear”, January 1889 - oil on canvas, 60-49 cm., London, Courtald Institute Galleries

Vincent van Gogh: “Self-portrait with bandaged ear”, January 1889

The story of van Gogh and its self-bandaged ear is so famous that we only need to make a brief summary for it: In December 1889, Van Gogh stalked Gauguin with a razor –this version told by Gauguin have been discussed by some experts- and then cut off the lower part of his own left ear, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." Gauguin left Arles and did not see Van Gogh again.

This is one of the two self-portraits that van Gogh painted after sectioning his ear (the other, previously in the collection of Leigh B. Block in Chicago, was bought later by the Niarchos family). The expression of the face of the artist is, paradoxically, calmer than in other many self-portraits by the artist. Perhaps it can be interpreted as an effort of the painter to find in the painting his particular salvation, enforced by the presence of a Japanese stamp. Vincent affirmed that he envied the Japanese painters for “his style as simple as to breathe”

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