Though Van Gogh asked repeatedly to see him, Gauguin-afraid that a visit would push him over the edge-left Arles for Paris and never saw him again. While at the hospital, he was diagnosed with “acute mania with generalized delirium.” Theo came to visit him at the hospital, but Gauguin stayed away. The following day, a police officer found him passed out, after far too much time had passed to attach his ear. This is where he severed his ear, wrapped it in a bandage, and delivered it to a woman at a brothel that the artists frequented. Though it's not quite clear what occurred, Van Gogh went back to his room after a fight with Gauguin on December 23. After two months of living together in The Yellow House, things came to a head. However, Gauguin would later say that their relationship was quite complicated. Gauguin arrived on October 23 and the two pushed each other creatively. Van Gogh greatly admired Gauguin-whose work was also collected by his brother Theo-and with whom he hoped to start an artist collective. At the time, Van Gogh was living in Arles and had invited Paul Gauguin to say with him. How did Van Gogh end up in the asylum? To understand, we must turn back the clock to 1888. This is the asylum that he voluntarily checked himself into in May 1889 and where he painted The Starry Night. This occurred just a few months after he left the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole mental asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Born in 1853, the artist was only 37 years old when he died of a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound. On top of his revolutionary oeuvre, Van Gogh is known for his profound struggles with mental illness. Van Gogh's room at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole (Photo: Original uploader (WT-fr) Saint Rémy de Provence Tourisme at French Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Impressionism artifact