"Van Gogh's Ear" by Adam Gopnik - Newyorker.com

This article from the New Yorker about an alternate theory of how van Gogh lost his ear (Gauguin cut off it off with his self-defense sword. Really.) Is remarkably well written. Check this out.

"If Trollope, as someone said, demonstrates that sanity need not be philistine, van Gogh demonstrates that insanity need not be insular. The stripping away of conventional decorum that van Gogh’s illness forced on him made him almost unnaturally present, alert to the world; when his mind went wrong, he became all heart.""

Good shit there.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/04/100104fa_fact_gopnik