On Why Van Gogh Cut Off His Ear

On Why Van Gogh Cut Off His Ear: There are various theories regarding Van Gogh and what happened to his left ear in December 1888. For starters, ever since about 1880, Van Gogh's father wanted his son committed to an insane asylum, because he experienced serious bouts of psychosis (delirium, depression, etc.) from time to time. When Van Gogh's father died in 1885, these psychotic episodes appeared more frequently. In the late 1880s, Van Gogh had been living in the south of France (Arles on the Rhone to be exact). He intended to turn the city into a colony for artists of the post-Impressionist genre. In fact, some of his most well-known paintings (Starry Night over the Rhone and Cafe Terrace at Night) originated during his time in Arles. And for two months in late 1888, Paul Gauguin lived with Van Gogh. Yet after Gauguin made plans to return to Paris, Van Gogh confronted him. The prevailing theory is that Van Gogh cut off his ear in a fit of rage during the ensuing argument, and gave it to a woman at the local brothel. Some art historians believe that Gauguin and Van Gogh shared a love interest with this woman, and thus, Gauguin might have actually attacked Van Gogh in a fit of jealousy. Whatever the case may be, this story will forever fascinate scholars of late-19th century impressionism.

On Modernism

On Modernism: When Nietzsche wrote "The world is a work of art that gives birth to itself" in the 1880s, he captured modernism's central thrust. Even the above painting (Salvador Dalí's surrealist piece The Persistence of Memory - 1931) defined the modernist ethos of breaking down time and space. In doing so, modernists sought to dissolve rationality itself. The primal superseded the rational, especially since modernists believed it existed before reason along the scale of evolutionary consciousness. Generally speaking, modernism was a distinct period of cultural history grounded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Art, literature, and philosophy all underwent massive shifts in directional thinking. The rigid societal norms of Victorianism provided the reactionary backdrop for many British and American modernists, while Bismarck's Second Reich served a similar purpose for German modernists. As the world's population surpassed one billion around 1850, many people questioned how they would continue to exist. Although advances in agricultural, medical, and transportation technologies (mech. reapers, anesthetics, and trains) helped people survive the nineteenth century, they scared modernists because each innovation effectively reinforced the primacy of time and space.

On Surrealism

On Surrealism: Although labeled a cultural movement in early twentieth-century Europe, surrealism mainly pertained to the visual arts. Its core tenets were largely philosophical insofar as surrealist artists encouraged observers to think through the confusion and unexpectedness in their works. Artists such as René Magritte (whose work Not to be Reproduced - 1937 - is on display in the above picture) and Max Ernst fit the surrealist mold by featuring the element of unconscious surprise in their paintings. The twisting of reality was certainly avant-garde at the time, especially since it signified a new barrier of consciousness for the mind to overcome. In Magritte's Not to be Reproduced, the man expects to see his face properly reflected in the mirror, as the book on the mantelpiece is accurately reflected. But the man only sees the back of his head, which either complicates or resolves the primordial pain of vanity for him. If there ever was a painting that captured the dysfunctional nature of existential anxiety, this was it.

The Aesthetics of Machinery

The Aesthetics of Machinery: German engineering has always devoted considerable attention to melding aesthetics and physics. With its sleek appearance, 450 horsepower engine, and aerodynamic design, the 2010 Audi RS5 is a perfect example of how German (automotive) engineering combines beauty and power. And there is a unique philosophical tradition in German engineering that can be traced back to philosophers like Immanel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer. In general, it calls for balancing the idealism of design with the pessimism of production. The idealism of design necessarily precedes the pessimism of production, as Kant's eighteenth-century idealism became eclipsed by Schopenhauer's nineteenth-century pessimism. Largely considered the last Enlightenment philosopher, Kant focused on the "thing in itself" (noumenon), which is a belief that the objective nature of a thing is known only to the mind. This kind of thinking can be contrasted with sensory perception and its emphasis on the appearance of a thing (phenomenon). Schopenhauer criticized Kant's idealism as being blind to the idea that a thing's aesthetic value often supersedes its moral worth. In fact, Schopenhauer replaced Kant's noumenon with the human "will to live" (Wille zum Leben). The "will to live" gives people a sense of practicality, which helps them to be more realistic (and pessimistic) when confronting the Truth behind the world and its appearances.