Van Gogh, after he cut off his own earlobe following a violent argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, whom he idolized and who came to stay with him in Arles in Provence in October 1888.Van Gogh shows the bandage on his mutilated ear like a saint displaying the stigmata. His head is turned to give us a better view. But this is a shameful self-portrait, raw with Van Gogh's horror and acceptance of what he has done to himself. The act of self-mutilation has changed Van Gogh. He has become this walking emblem of what it is to live the life of art. When Van Gogh went to live in the south of France in 1888 he expected to be happy. He wrote to his brother Theo that he hoped his life there would be more and more like a Japanese painter's. For
