Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Page 269

This is the portrait Vincent was painting when he cut off his ear.


Distressed by Gauguin's eminent plans to leave Arles, combined with the image of the woman rocking a cradle (that's what the rope in her hands is for), which he also imagined could be a Madonna on a boat rocking the sailors to sleep, plus several other mad thoughts led to Vincent's violent act, chronicled from pages 274-286.