(English version at the bottom)
梵高的左耳於 1888 年12月聖誕節左右被割去一大半。普遍認為，梵高由於與好友高更發生爭執，高更憤怒之下離他而去。
梵高因情緒激動而導致精神失常，於12月23日晚揮刀割掉自己的左耳。關於割耳事件的原委，近日兩名德國的藝術史研究學者揭露，梵高的左耳實為在與高更一次爭吵中，高更揮刀誤傷而導致梵高左耳被割掉。兩人為了掩蓋事實真相，維持友誼，而向警方謊稱割耳事件是梵高自己動手所為。
當然也有人懷疑高更有沒有那麼好的＂劍術＂，亂揮之間可以錯手造出手術刀式的齊切傷口。
On 23 October Gauguin eventually arrived in Arles, after repeated requests from Van Gogh. During November they painted together. Uncharacteristically, Van Gogh painted some pictures from memory, deferring to Gauguin’s ideas in this. Their first joint outdoor painting exercise was conducted at the picturesque Alyscamps.It was in November that Van Gogh painted The Red Vineyard.
In December the two artists visited Montpellier and viewed works by Courbet and Delacroix in the Museé Fabre. However, their relationship was deteriorating badly. They quarrelled fiercely about art. Van Gogh felt an increasing fear that Gauguin was going to desert him, and what he described as a situation of “excessive tension” reached a crisis point on 23 December 1888, when Van Gogh stalked Gauguin with a razor and then cut off the lower part of his own left ear lobe, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to “keep this object carefully.” It has recently been proposed by two German art historians that Van Gogh did not cut off his own ear, but that Gauguin, a fencing ace, attacked Van Gogh. It is said that the two artists agreed to hide the truth of what happened. Gauguin left Arles and never saw Van Gogh again.
