BOOK FROM THE WEEK ON BBC RADIO 4

PRIMETIME BBC2 DOCUMENTARY WITH JEREMY PAXMAN

On the dark evening in Provence in December 1888 Vincent van Gogh cut off his hearing. It is an action that has arrive to specify him. Yet for greater than a hundred years biographers and historians looking for definitive factual statements about what happened that night have already been left with an increase of queries than answers.

In Truck Gogh’s Ear Bernadette Murphy models out to find exactly what happened that night in Arles. Why would an artist at the height of his about Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story forces commit such a brutal take action? Who was simply the incomprehensible ‘Rachel’ to whom he provided his macabre present? Was it simply his lobe, or did Van Gogh actually cut off his entire ear? Her analysis will take us from main museums to the dusty material of overlooked archives, vividly reconstructing the world in which Van Gogh moved – the madams and prostitutes, café customers and law enforcement inspectors, his much loved brother Theo and his fellow musician and house-guest Paul Gauguin. With exclusive revelations and brand-new analysis about the ear and about ‘Rachel’, Bernadette Murphy proposes a vibrant new hypothesis in what was happening in Vehicle Gogh’s heart and mind as he produced a strange delivery to her doorstep that fateful night time.

Van Gogh’s Hearing is a compelling detective story and a journey of discovery. It is also a portrait of the painter creating his most iconic and innovative work, pushing himself ever closer to greatness even as he edged towards madness – and one fateful sweep from the blade that would resonate through the age groups.