Van Gogh: Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear

In this episode of 'Why They Put That in a Museum,' hosts Beth Bacon and Sarah Lees delve into the history and cultural significance of Vincent van Gogh's 'Self Portrait with a Bandaged Ear.' They explore what makes the painting so moving, talk about Van Gogh's life and mental state during its creation, and the pivotal role played by the unsung woman who worked to get his works into museums. The hosts also discuss Van Gogh's artistic influences, his tumultuous relationship with Paul Gauguin, and the enduring emotional power of the painting. Tune in for a deeper understanding of why this compelling work deserves its place in the Courtauld museum.

© 2025 Why'd They Put That In A Museum podcast hosts Beth Bacon and Sarah Lees.

Transcript

Transcript of Podcast Why'd They Put That In A Museum. Episode 1: Van Gogh's Self-Portrait With A Bandaged Ear   

Hello. I am Beth Bacon. And I'm Sarah Lees. And hi everyone. Welcome to “Why They Put That in a Muse” the podcast where we explore objects found in museums. We're here to talk about art and objects and museums and what happens when you put them together and invite people in to look.

Have you ever wandered through a gallery and wondered, why is this here? We're diving deep into the stories behind the artifacts. For each episode, we'll start with one thing in one specific place, and then wander off from there, exploring the thing and its history and cultural context to see where all that takes us, and eventually, usually, coming back to the original thing to see if it looks or feels different as a result.

You know, the more I know about different pieces in museums I really do think that they look a little bit different or just knowing more about it, makes me see it differently somehow. 

You know, that's the goal. So, We should also note that since you can't  see what we're talking about in an audio only medi we'll always let you know where the thing lives when we can and supply a link to the website or an image.

So Sarah, what are we going to be talking about today? 

Today's topic is a painting by Vincent van Gogh called Self Portrait with a Bandaged Ear. 

Ah, yes, the infamous painting of Van Gogh after he sliced off his ear. Why did he do that? 

Well, there's definitely a story there and we are going to talk about it.

We're going to talk about the person who was largely responsible for getting Van Gogh's art into museums and collections. And just a hint, it is not his dedicated brother Theo. 

Oh, I have heard of his brother Theo, and I thought he was Van Gogh's, like, artist agent or his salesperson, but Theo was not the one to get Van Gogh's, art into galleries?

Well, yeah, Theo was all that, during his lifetime, but, as we'll find out, he wasn't really the most important person in terms of getting Van Gogh out there and better known.

Ooh, well, who was it then? 

Yeah. Let's find out.

 Let's talk a little bit about the work itself.

There are actually two versions of this image. One of them is in a private collection, and one is in a place called the Courtauld Institute in London. if you want to get a good picture, I always recommend going to the museum website. And what's the name of the museum?  It's named after a guy called Samuel Courtauld, which is C O U R T A U L D and the website is that word plus A C dot U K.

I've never heard of that museum. 

Oh, yeah. It's a great place. It's actually both a muse art gallery, and a degree granting institution. for art history.  Yeah, it's quite well known. I mean, there are tons of museums in London, but this is a noteworthy one,  in part because of its fantastic collection. And one of the highlights of which is this Van Gogh painting. 

How did they end up with the Van Gogh with the bandaged ear? 

Good question. We can definitely get into that story.  but first let's talk about the picture itself.  So we are looking again at a portrait of Van Gogh himself.

He is appears to be seated. I think it's kind of bust length or, you know, from the shoulders up. He is bundled up in a big green overcoat sort of thing. And A large hat with kind of a furry brim on it, turned up, and then behind him is what appears to be an easel with a canvas on it, and on the other side you see an image on the wall,  the wall itself is bright yellow, and the image has lots of colors and a couple of figures in there and then at the edge of the canvas on the right is a little sliver of probably a door, maybe a window,  of this room. And that window door is blue. Yeah. So all the colors here are really vibrant, I would say. The green of his coat is like a deep kind of hunter green.  his hat is kind of a bright green.

And then the wall, as I said, is this really sharp yellow and there's other details like in the image, which I should say is actually a Japanese print. It's got lots of red and more green in there. So it really is a vibrant image, and you can also see a lot of the brush strokes. It's fairly thickly painted.

You can see kind of touches of green and with blue mixed in and his coat. So, yeah, there's a lot of like vertical stripes that look like brush strokes in the coat and in the door and in the wall behind him. Almost like kind of like pointillism, but like long strokes. Yeah, well, this is an important point, actually, and I should mention also the painting was made in 1889.

And we think we know fairly precisely when, and that was a moment when pointillism had already appeared, in a noteworthy way in an exhibition in 1886. So Van Gogh definitely kind of absorbed that as an influence. And this kind of handling of the paint that you mentioned, is inspired by,  Those kinds of innovative painting practices.

Yeah, but I bet that's not the reason why it's in the museum. What strikes me is his fierce expression. You know, the face in the middle of this picture is just captivating, you know, it's, he's just staring and he's, I don't know. He seems to be resolute.

 Absolutely. You know, you're exactly right. It is a really intense expression. I should mention, too, his eyes are kind of a bright green. So again, that works against the bright yellow behind him. 

Were his eyes in real life bright green?

I believe they were. Yes. Yeah. It's not always apparent in these self portraits. He made about 35 different ones. And sometimes, His eyes are emphasized more than in others.  The colors here are true to life. The colors, I would say, are kind of heightened and intensified.

They're definitely based on his observations of the world around him. And I should say, even the wall, which I said is such a bright, intense yellow.  that's because. This room, Van Gogh painted it bright yellow. In fact, the house that he's in at this moment is called the yellow house.  so that is,  reality, but kind of heightened and intensified.

And so we should talk about where exactly this is situated. As you may know, Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands, in Holland, and grew up in small towns near Amsterdam. He was mostly self-taught as an artist. And initially, the way that he painted was in very dark kind of earth tones, lots of browns and blacks.

Then in 1886, in order to further his career as an artist, he moved to Paris. And 1886 was a moment when Impressionism was well established. And I said,  post-impressionism or Impressionism, pointillism was also just emerging. And so Van Gogh, when he moved to Paris, discovered a couple of things simultaneously.

First, these innovative kind of avant garde artists, painting in this very lively, rapid, intense manner. And he also discovered artists who are some of those artists. Some of the big names would be, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, for example, the pointillists. So these were the people that Van Gogh wanted to meet, basically, when he moved to Paris.

And he also discovered, that the light in a more southerly city than in Amsterdam was brighter. The atmosphere was different from what he was familiar with. And he really liked that. So essentially his painting kind of bloomed into color once he reached Paris. But then his goal was to find someplace even brighter and more atmospherically sort of intense.

And so he devised this plan to move to the south of France to a small town called Arles. His wish was to establish a sort of artist colony there, where he could work with fellow artists and get support from them. And that the south of France was the perfect place to establish this kind of artist colony and also to work in the bright light of the South.

So that is why he rented the yellow house in Arles. 

Did he have a lot of friends? Did he have, like, a network of people that could be in his colony? 

He did have friends. He was kind of a challenging personality. He was kind of intense as a person. And we know this from his letters,  of which there are tons.

And the amazing thing is you can read all of his letters for free on a website called “Van Gogh Letters Dot Org.”  It's an incredible resource. Van Gogh Letters Dot Org. Yeah. Cool.

So, and who are most of his letters to, or were they all kinds of recipients? 

The primary recipient of his letters was actually his brother Theo.

Theo Van Gogh was just a few couple years younger, I think, than Vincent, and he actually worked as an art dealer. He worked for an art dealer in Paris, and Theo provided Vincent with all kinds of support, financial for one, and emotional as well. They were quite close as brothers. And so a great majority of the letters are written to Theo and some to other artists.

Now, I should say that, at this moment, one of the primary artists with whom Vincent was friends, was Paul Gauguin. 

So Paul Gauguin. He's the one who is famous for all the Tahiti pictures? 

Yes, exactly. He, after this moment, Gauguin did travel to Tahiti. Gauguin also was interested, first of all, in kind of avant garde painting techniques.

So he was in that group of impressionists and post-impressionists.  And although Van Gogh wrote to a number of different people, or spoke with them, to get them to buy into this idea of an artist colony in Arles, Gauguin was the only one who agreed to visit. So in October of 1888, Gauguin traveled down to Arles to stay with Vincent in the Yellow House.

And Vincent had actually prepared a whole room for Gauguin. He was really excited about finally realizing his dream. But they were really different. 

A colony of two? 

Right. Yeah, you got to start somewhere, but yes. 

Oh, can I, can I go back a little bit? 

Yeah. 

You said that Theo was an art dealer, but my understanding of Van Gogh is that he really didn't sell anything during his lifetime.So his brother was an art dealer, but couldn't sell Vincent's work? Is that the situation? 

It's not entirely that he didn't sell anything at all.  But he didn't sell very much. And yeah, even having a brother who was an art dealer who did, uh, get some of. Vincent's paintings into a few exhibitions.  he wasn't an established artist and he didn't sell to collectors because some of his paintings were pretty challenging.

 What did happen, sometimes, is that he would exchange his paintings with a man called Père Tanguy, who was actually an art supplier. So he had a shop and would take some of Van Gogh's paintings in exchange for, you know, paints and brushes and things. And in fact,  Père Tanguy was the first owner of this Self-Portrait With a Bandaged Ear.

 Some of the things that Tanguy had then would have been sold to people.But yeah, there were no major collectors who were interested in Van Gogh's art during most of his lifetime. 

You said his art was challenging. 

Yeah. 

Explain what that means, because right now he's like a master, his works sell as much as the most artists can sell for.

Right. He's considered, you know, an icon. But back then it was challenging and not, you know, easy to…. Yeah, absolutely.

 What was the deal? 

In part, it is this style that we've been talking about. It's kind of very rough and kind of lively handling of paint. It is the intense colors, which look as I said, heightened, they're not completely unnaturalistic, but they're not also not descriptive.They're not, you know, some more established painters at the time painted in an almost photographically realistic style with perfect smooth mirror finish to their canvases. And this is really almost diametrically opposed to that kind of style. So if that was the mainstream, this was very definitely outside the mainstream and that did make it challenging.

Aside from, there were a few people who appreciated avant garde art, and they did start to collect Vincent's work. So his colors were challenging, his brush strokes and use of paint was challenging, and maybe even his  perspective, because the perspective is a little bit, like, flat. 

Yeah. Angled or it's almost like getting towards cubism. I mean, really clearly not cubism, but it's flatter than like, like, say, a Rembrandt. Yeah. 

Oh, you're absolutely right. Yes. Even the way that this portrait is kind of composed. It's almost as if, you know, the edges of his jacket are flat against the picture surface, right? You don't get much sense of depth. He's really pushed right up against what we think of as the picture plane, meaning kind of the inside side of the canvas,  and looking, it's almost as if his gaze breaks that wall between us as viewers and him as, The subject and also the creator of this image.

Right. But then the wall behind him is just, it's as if it's right up against his shoulders  and some of this flatness, it is a quality that other painters of that time shared.  Gauguin also painted in a similar manner that was again, not abstract, as you said, it's not cubism, but it is kind of abstracting reality and making it less  illusionistic. I think. Yeah. 

And also, to some extent, it's a challenging subject matter. You see this bandage on an ear. It's not like some nobleman's portrait. It's a, it's a… you know, an injured person with a very intense expression. It's really not like, “Oh  how pleasant is this.” It's really, this probably would have been a challenging painting to sell.

Right. Cause you're right. It looks like something has seriously happened somehow. 

There's emotion in it. A lot of emotion. 

Oh, tons. Yeah. So did we get to the part about the argument between Gauguin and Van Gogh? No, no. And like why his ears chopped off. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.  so,  as I said, Van Gogh and Gauguin wanted to work together.

They had tons of goodwill, but they had different viewpoints in part about how to paint and what to paint. So all of this came to a head just before Christmas of 1888. And it was also a moment when Van Gogh, who had for some time, struggled with his mental health. He probably suffered from some depression.

He was, as I said, really kind of intense and hopeful about this whole idea and afraid that it might fall apart, his artist colony idea. And Gauguin had already written to somebody earlier in the month saying that he probably would have to leave and go back to Paris. So all this came to a head, they, the two artists had an argument, and it's probably at this moment that Van Gogh also did in fact suffer kind of a mental breakdown.

And he, by some reports, threatened Gauguin with a razor. But then when Gauguin kind of left the room, apparently Van Gogh hurt himself. He cut off most of his ear, and apparently wrapped it in cloth, and brought it to a local prostitute. And this of course caused an uproar in the town.  The police came apparently the next morning, found  Van Gogh in his yellow house in a terrible state of course. He hadn't really been taken care of. And they took him to the hospital. 

It was About two or three weeks later, in January of 1889, that Van Gogh painted this self portrait. So at that point he had recovered somewhat. His mental state was a little bit more stable.

And in painting this work, he was really trying to pull himself together, essentially. You know, making art was also a form of therapy. And so, I think the intensity that you see in his look is Ringo saying I'm back. I'm at my easel. I can still do this, even though I had this terrible breakdown. 

Yeah, that's so interesting.  I wonder, like, the 3 things that are behind him. 

Sure. 

They probably were there in the room, right? Symbolically, I think it's really interesting. On one side is a blank canvas, right? Maybe that represents the future, you know, and there's also this really colorful,  print of Japanese origin of women and a mountain in the background.

Yeah, a finished really interesting piece of art as opposed to the blank canvas. And then next to that is a door or an exit.  I see it as like an exit.

Yeah, yeah, that's a nice idea where you would leave to or go to. 

And I wonder if these are the things that he's like thinking about the choices  that he would maybe make in his life. Should I paint this and fulfill my dream? You know, maybe the picture symbolizes what he wants is to have like a finished beautiful painting. And also there's a door. Yeah. Or window or right? That's…

I love that idea that it's forward looking. It's almost optimistic. It's like I can still create something on the blank canvas and there is still a pathway or a doorway to the future. Right?

I think that's a really cool idea. Yeah. Hmm. I don't know. I'm just looking at the bandage though, which is still, I don't know. It just shows that there's a wound there. 

Yeah, absolutely. I think he's acknowledging all of that, that he is wounded. As you say, he's injured, but trying to recover. Trying to keep it together.

So, I mean, you did ask the question of would this be, you know, who was buying his stuff? And,  maybe we could talk about that more. Because as I said, the first owner, of this painting was the art supplier, Julien Tanguy in Paris. 

Okay, so like, he basically bartered this for supplies with Tanguy.

I think so. I don't know that for sure, but I think so. Yeah. Often Vincent would send, you know, shipments like crates of paintings to Theo in Paris, to try to sell. I wonder if this one first went to Theo and then to Tanguy or directly to Tanguy, that part I'm not clear on. 

But the next person who bought it presumably from Tanguy was actually someone who was interested in contemporary art, who actually did appreciate this style, this kind of innovative work, so that probably would have been, you know, in the early 20th century, I think.

But that guy only kept the painting for 10 or 12 years. Then it went to an art dealer in Paris again. And finally in 1928, the painting was bought by Samuel Courtauld. 

So here's where Courtauld comes in. Samuel Courtauld was a businessman whose family had been textiles manufacturers. In the early 20th Century, Samuel Courtauld himself, actually developed and marketed a kind of a silk substitute fabric.

So this was how he made his money. He was pretty wealthy.  And he was one of the first English art collectors to appreciate French art of the Impressionist and Post Impressionist period.  So it's interesting that it took until the 20th Century for somebody to start to really appreciate and collect this kind of work.

Okay. So going back to, what did you say… 1888? 

It was painted in January of 1889. 

1889. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. 

So right at the beginning of 89, Van Gogh was a young man, but he didn't live very long. 

Did he, he, he didn't die by his ear wound. Did he? 

No, the ear healed, but his, psychological condition continued to be challenging. The asylum Van Gogh first checked himself into was in the south of France, only about 16 miles or so northeast of Arles. And then about a year later, he moved to another facility that was just outside Paris. So he stayed in that facility for about a year and it was from there that actually in 1890,  and there is some debate about precisely how this happened, but it is currently thought that Van Gogh did kill himself in 1890.

Probably because all of his mental state and the challenges of living, I think, just got to be more than he could manage. 

Well, that's really tragic. 

Yeah, it's an amazing story.  And sort of sadly and coincidentally, his brother Theo, who of course had been his greatest supporter up to that point, died less than a year later, in 1891.

At that point, most of Van Gogh's paintings were probably in Theo's possession. And when Theo died,  they were left to Theo's widow, Joanna. 

Joanna. 

Yeah, Joanna Van Gogh. But Joanna Van Gogh persisted. And she had this large collection of his art on her hands. And so what Joanna did was, she began to try to get it out there, try to place it in exhibitions, get people to see it, get people to buy it. 

And so Van Gogh was championed by a woman.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 

You always hear about his brother who was an art dealer, but I had never heard about his sister in law. What was his relationship with her when he was alive? 

 Joanna Van Gogh. So their relationship initially was a little tentative because Joanna was kind of worried about getting in between the brothers who had, as I said, a really close relationship. But eventually, she did come to kind of develop her own relationship with Vincent. And there are some letters to Joanna as well. They're really lovely. She says, essentially, she calls herself his sister. In May of 1889, Joanna wrote to Vincent and she says, “Dearest brother, it's high time that your new little sister, herself, came to chat with you and didn't always just let Theo convey her regards. When we weren't married yet, I always thought, well, I don't really dare write to Vincent about everything yet. But now we really have become brother and sister, and I would so like you to, to know me a little, and if possible, love me a little.” 

Oh, that's so sweet.

Yeah, it's really amazing. When you read these letters, you really feel like you are meeting these people and getting to know them. They're really amazing. 

So do you think that Joanna not only got him as a person, but also got his art? 

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I think so. I think they wanted to support him in his career and they, you know, they knew him as a person and they appreciated his goals and his art.

I think so. Yeah. I mean, that, that's just amazing. Like she inherited Vincent's work and then she like worked on her own. She didn't have to go out and try to get these in galleries and get these sold. But she made the effort to do that. 

Yeah. I mean, I think she felt obligated again to,  to be his champion, really.

That is just part of the story… that is not one that I've heard of. 

Yeah, I know. Isn't that cool?  

Actually, I would love to, read her  biography by somebody, you know, all the history of her life and how hard  it must have been as a woman trying to go around selling, this challenging art that was kind of ahead of its time.

Right. She must have gotten a lot of rejection. I imagine. 

Yeah, I suppose. But I think again, so by the early 20th century, people were beginning to acknowledge and accept this kind of painting. There were critics.  One well known was Roger Fry, who was an English one,  who wrote about this kind of work and organized exhibitions.

And in fact, in 1905, Joanna organized a major retrospective in Amsterdam of Van Gogh's work. So,  that was largely thanks to her because she owned most of the paintings that I think were in the show and probably wrote to a few other people to get some loans as well. So, she was really instrumental in the first big exhibition of his work.And she also, remarkably, because she kept all of the letters that Van Gogh had written, she put together the first published edition of the letters in 1914.  That was, of course, they were published in Dutch initially, and in French, since some of them are written in French. That was translated into English in 1929. 

So by 1929 his work was admired enough to have... people really want to read his letters, right?

Right. That's kind of cool. 

But it's just striking to me that… why is this in a museum? Why is any of Van Gogh's art in a museum? It's because of his sister in law, a woman who worked and networked and, bargained and talked and showed and, did what she had to do, to get his work out there and get it done.

Yeah. Yeah. It is amazing. I mean, and a few years later it was admired for being masterful, right? Yeah. But it took, you're, you're right, it took her. 

And then Courtauld, when he bought this, did he have the Courtauld Museum or did that come after his acquisition of this painting? 

It came right around the same time. But yeah, that's a good point. So he had this art collection, and then he wanted to create a place where people could come and see this kind of challenging,  avant garde work,  and be more educated about its goals and meaning. So Courtauld, along with Roger Fry, who I mentioned, founded the Courtauld Gallery and Institute as a combined sort of educational and philanthropic mission to have it open for everyone so that they could learn about art.

And the painting's been there ever since? 

It has. Yeah, I mean, it's been lent on a number of occasions to other exhibitions, of course. But yeah, that has been its home since 1928. 

So, yeah, is this painting one of the reasons why people go to the Courtauld? Definitely one of them, but there are other reasons.

So if you know thepainting by Manet called “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère,” a woman, you know, standing at a counter that's also at the Courtauld. I mean, they have some amazing things. I highly recommend going there. It just reopened recently, actually, after a renovation, I think. So if you're ever in London, check it out.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, interesting.  Yeah. Is there anything else that you would say that we need to know about why this particular picture is in a museum? 

There's so much one could say about it, but I think. Any muse obviously, would be honored to have this kind of, beautiful, meaningful, you know, and famous painting. All those reasons are good justification for somebody like Courtauld. And I think it's really important that people can buy this and put it in a place where it's accessible to the public. 

Yeah, beautiful, meaningful. And I would add emotional. I think it's just a really an emotionally stirring picture.

Yeah, absolutely. I can't look at it without feeling what he's feeling. It just comes through the picture. Yeah, you're right. I think all of it works together to give you a sense of. His state of mind really of being vulnerable and powerful at the same time. 

Yes. He's wounded, but he is going to keep on working.

Yeah. Yeah. It's an amazing image. Yeah. Yeah. 

Well, I guess that's our show, Sarah.

 Yeah. I think that'll do it. Yeah. 

Well, we hope we've given you a fresh perspective on this picture, Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait With A Bandaged Ear. 

If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We love getting feedback.

Anything you say might inspire us to feature it in another episode. You never know. We're always looking for ideas. Yeah. Alright, so see you next time. Thanks. Okay, bye.