John van Gogh

 

John can't resist taking a picture of his bandaged ear after dermatological surgery on Saturday. Photo by John Denniston. 

Look familiar? Vincent van Gogh painted Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear in January 1889.

When John came home from dermatological surgery on his ear, what’s the first thing he did? Photographed himself with a bandage covering it so completely that his ear appeared to have vanished.

One hundred and thirty-four years ago, to the month, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh produced an eerily similar portrait of himself. His 1889 bandage is bigger and clumsier, covering the side of his face from hat to chin, as well as the ear that he’d mutilated. Stories about the incident differ – it was a fit of mania, a fight with his housemate Paul Gauguin, or anxiety over financial support. He either lopped off his ear lobe only, or nearly his entire ear; and he gave the appendage to either a maid or a prostitute.

John’s story lacks the drama of a century of myth-making; the doctors were just excising some questionable tissue, and did a fine stitching job under that skin-coloured bandage.

But it’s interesting to look at the similarity of these pictures 134 years apart. Two visual artists, two damaged ears and what’s their response? Make a self-portrait.