Meteor Shower on August
2009: NASA Video and
Photos
Most anyone who's had a beginning art history class knows the story of how the great
Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh sliced off part of his left ear during a fit of madness.
Now a team of German historians has published a new book arguing that the whole
tale is untrue. The story of van Gogh's madness was part of a coverup, the authors say,
by none other than van Gogh's friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin.
Van Gogh and Gauguin forged a deep friendship during the two years they lived and
painted as neighbors in Arles, in the south of France. The two had built the town's
reputation as an artistic colony. That dream ended in an angry exchange between the
painters on the evening of Dec. 23, 1888.
"The traditional version of what happened there is wrong," Hans Kaufmann says.
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