Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“background” blend into the flowery wallpaper in the “foreground.” Gauguin rejected the
camera-eye literalness of Western art. His simple style requires the viewer's imagination
to fill in the blanks, perhaps evoking the romance of a bygone world that is...nevermore.
By the way, Gauguin insisted that the title and the raven were not from Poe's poem,
but “a bird of the devil who watches.” Hmm.
• Next, dominating Room 7 (a.k.a. the Sydney Butler Room) is...
Vincent van Gogh—
Self
-
Portrait with Bandaged Ear
(1889)
On the night of December 23, 1888, Vincent van Gogh went ballistic. Drunk, self-doubt-
ing, clinically insane, and enraged at his friend Gauguin's smug superiority, he waved a
knife in Gauguin's face, and later that night cut off a piece of his own ear and gave it to a
prostitute. Gauguin hightailed it back to Paris, and the locals in Arles persuaded the mad
Dutchman to get help. A week later, just released from the hospital, Vincent stood in front
of a blank canvas and looked at himself in the mirror.
What he saw looking back was a calm man with an unflinching gaze, dressed in a
heavy coat (painted with thick, vertical strokes of blue and green) and fur-lined hat. The
