Tortured Genius: Retold

We all know the figure: the tormented artist - your Woolfs, Cobains and Plaths. It was a stereotype that always bothered me, as even by stereotype standards it always seemed selectively applied, verging on the fetishistic. No one bothers to ask whether the brilliant plumber’s struggle with depression is part of his craft, or if the receptionist’s tragic childhood is the fire that fuels her administrative wizardry. So when two German art historians presented a different interpretation of a famous instance of artistic madness, I was all ears...

Arles, December 23rd 1888: an inky blue night sky cloaks the town. Zoom in on a yellow house, from inside we can hear the yelling of the slightly rat-arsed. The front door bursts open and a man with a black moustache barrels out, he’s got huge bags in each fist. He storms off down the street, when after him clatters a man with a ginger beard, clutching a bottle of green liquor. He shouts after Mr Moustache, ‘Fine! Go! You were a shit roommate anyway! Always hogging the ochre...’

Mr Moustache stops dead, sets down his bags, turns on his heel and holds up both hands in obscene gesture,

‘Fuck…wait for it…you!’

Ginger-Beard’s hands and eyebrows shoot up, ‘Ohhh reeealll mature Paul!’

He sidles up to Mr Moustache, who sways furiously on the spot, ‘Admit it pal. You-‘ with every over-enunciated word he’s prodding him in the shoulder, ‘Just. Hate. That. Rachel. Likes. Me. Bett-‘

Mr Moustache slaps away Ginger-Beard’s hand. He reels backwards for a second, and then ricochets back, absinthe bottle a-swinging. Mr Moustache ducks just in time, he fumbles inside his jacket for a long, wicked dagger – he’s going to brandish it around a bit, make Beardy back off. His fingers close around the hilt, ‘Haha!’ he draws with a flourish, Inigo Montoya style. He stumbles back a bit, but covers for the misstep with some knifey figures-of-eight.'You better not fuck with me buddy, I’m a fukken fencing machine!’

Ginger-Beard’s eyes trail about two seconds behind the tip of the blade, ‘Oh puh-lease! What you gonna do, cut me? Is that what you’re gonna do, you big girl’s blouse? You gonna-‘

There’s a metallic swish, and a soft little ‘thuck’ as an unfortunate appendage hits the pavement. Beardy feels something warm running down his cheek right into his ginger beard. Mr Moustache’s eyes have gone wide, his hand quivers up over his mouth,

‘Oh shit.’

‘You…did you just…’

‘Oh shit oh shit oh shit…’

‘Yep,’ Beardy bends down slowly and picks up the sad little slip of flesh, ‘You cut it off. Look, that’s my ear right there.’ He flicks it gently…

‘Floop!’

Suddenly he turns around and starts to hobble away down the street. Mr Moustache shouts after him,

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going… I've had a really, really good idea. Me and Mr Ear, we’re going on a trip…’

‘What? Where are you going?!'

But Ginger-Beard's already rounding the corner, disappearing from sight. Mr Moustache just stands there, looking desperately around him. He surreptitiously tucks the blade away, before calling out one final time,

‘Vincent mate, please don’t tell Rachel !’

The evidence is patchy, the academics that posit the theory claim Van Gogh and Gaugin came up with a pact of silence to avoid legal repercussions, excusing the lack of hard evidence. It’s perfectly possible that Van Gogh did indeed slice the thing off himself. However, the story of two friends having a drunken domestic that escalated all the way up to cultural myth, it tickles me.