Kevin's Thoughts on "Self Portrait With Bandaged Ear and Pipe"

Van Gogh’s “Self Portrait With Bandaged Ear And Pipe” passes on a message not only of his overwhelming physical suffering, but also of extreme mental despair, fear, and immense anxiety. The sallow face, bandaged ear, and shrinking chicks convey his unhealthiness. His distorted eyes signal hopelessness; the completely covered up body with multiple layers of clothes, rough and flat use of color, and the burning pipe reflect his spiritual instability and anxious mentality. Some, however, have different views towards this portrait. In article “Comparison of Van Gogh self-portraits,” the author argues that despite the pain and despair on the surface, the painting represents calmness, order and peace of mind. I certainly disagree.

The portrait is a mirror reflection of Van Gogh, facing the viewers at a slight angle. The man is wrapped in a thick green winter jacket, wearing a black feather hat that one would only wear in severe coldness. However, the man is not in any outside wildness. Instead, he is sitting inside a rigid room, without windows or any other media through which the outside chillness can reach the room. Yet he wears his outdoor gears. It makes him look like he is so physically fragile and weak that he needs warmth to keep him alive. Beyond warmth, Van Gogh seems in need of protection and a sense of security. His spiky hat looks defensive, jacket buttoned up, like a shell, demonstrating his fear confronting the harsh reality. Thus, he wraps himself with everything he can to protect himself from the outside world.

Van Gogh expresses extreme sorrow and remorse. One of the most noticeable features in this painting is his unusual facial composition － the pallid face, soulless eyes along with the powerless lips. His face is thin and his complexion appears unhealthily yellow, giving the impression that he is aging significantly every second. The eyes are drawn not looking at you. The distance between them is noticeable closer than a normal, healthy person. They lack the sharpness, or sparks or reflection that can create three dimensional effect. Instead, they are dry and extremely flat, as if two random pieces sticked to the face. That reminds of me a hopeless person who stares at a mirror and looks at himself and is not expecting anything anymore. He appears dazed and lost. If eyes are the widows to the soul, Van Gogh’s window, apparently, is closed. Van Gogh has lost his physical strength as he can barely hold a pipe in his lips, which leans downward.

The color in this painting carries an emotional and spiritual message. It is somewhat monochromatic in a sense that the background is entirely composed of red and orange blocks. The author argues that Van Gogh expresses “emotional consolation and support through the stable shapes and colors of the background,” claiming that red establishes a secure base and orange above represents warmth. He sees the contrast between the foreground and background colors as complementary and in stable order; thus he concludes that Van Gogh has achieved order and control. However, the colors indicate different messages to me. I see anxiety. The contrast between the “hotness” in the background and the coldness the blue hat and green coat embody signals a sense of disturbance and inconsistency. Van Gogh have lost his patience to paint. Unlike many of his other paintings, such as “The Starry Night” and “The Sunflowers,” which contain a rich and subtle background, this portrait is filled with flat colors and looked very incoherent to the overall tone of the paint. It seems to me that Van Gogh simply throws whatever color he has next to him on the canvases on a whim. These drips have no particular meaning or purpose. Van Gogh did not want to modify it, instead, he wanted to get it over with the paint. The source of the inconsistency and roughness originates from his anxiety. Furthermore, the fact that Van Gogh is smoking a pipe also conveys his anxious mentality. Imagine when you come across a super hard problem in your math homework. You’ve been spending hours on it and still can’t figure it out. What would you do? If you are a smoker, I suppose you would light on a cigarette. Smoking is a natural outcome of anxiety and uneasiness.

Therefore I conclude, in this painting, Van Gogh is not only emaciated on the surface, but also broken on the inside. I admit that knowing the background of Van Gogh may change my interpretation, but nevertheless, you cannot say he is ready to go out and party.