Jug in the Form of a Head, Self-Portrait

Jug in the form of a Head, Self-portrait (usually referred to as the Jug Self-portrait) was produced in glazed stoneware early in 1889 by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin. This self-portrayal is especially stark and brutal, and was created in the aftermath of two traumatic events in the artist's life. In December 1888 Gauguin was visiting Vincent van Gogh in Arles when Van Gogh cut off his left ear (or part of it, accounts vary) before leaving it at a brothel frequented by them both. A few days later in Paris, Gauguin witnessed the beheading of the notorious murderer Prado. Gauguin shows his severed head, dripping with rivulets of blood, his ear cut off, his eyes closed as if in denial. Gauguin portrays himself with closed eyes and a severed ear. Glaze is used to suggest blood which runs down the side of his face to congeal at his neck. As with many of his self-portraits the object is infused with self-pity. The head resembles a death mask, and the way it is modelled strongly suggests that it has been decapitated, reminiscent of Prado. The portrait evokes Van Gogh in a number of ways, most obviously with the removed ear and its dominant red colouring which gives it, according to writer Naomi Margolis Maurer, "a strong fictitious resemblance to the suffering van Gogh". The stoneware contains subtle green, grey and olive tones that are often not apparent in reproduction, while its brutal physicality is in part achieved by its three-dimensionality. It has been noted by a number of art critics that photographic reproductions of the object largely fail to convey the impact it makes when viewed firsthand. In 1989 the critic Laurel Gasque wrote, "This macabre image, fired at a very high temperature literally and figuratively, fuses life, myth, and history into an unforgettable emblem of a ravaged man."

Background

A number of events in Gauguin's life led to the object's creation. During November and December of the previous year, he lived with van Gogh in Arles. The objective had been to found an artists' commune. Van Gogh greatly admired Gauguin, and desperately wanted to be treated as his equal. But Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, a fact that often frustrated the Dutchman. Relations between the two deteriorated and eventually Gauguin, alarmed by Van Gogh's drunkenness and temperament, told him he was leaving. Later that day, on a possibly self-serving account supplied by Gauguin fifteen years later, Van Gogh confronted Gauguin with the same razor blade he used hours later to mutilate himself, cutting off his left ear (or part of it), an injury sufficiently serious to induce arterial bleeding. Accounts differ as to what happened next, not least because van Gogh himself had no subsequent recollection of the events, but it is certain that van Gogh, after staunching the bleeding, bandaged his injury and left the severed ear at a maison de tolérance on Rue du Bout d'Aeles that van Gogh and Gauguin frequented. Van Gogh at this time was extolling the virtue of sexual continence in the pursuit of Art (he was, in any case, impotent by then), but nevertheless used prostitutes for "hygienic reasons". The story that he left the ear with a prostitute called Rachel asking her to "guard it like a treasure" that immediately gained currency, appears to originate from a local news report of the time. Gauguin's own account was that he left it with the bouncer with the message "Remember me" (the implication being that it was meant for Gauguin), before staggering back to the house he shared with Gauguin. Gauguin was amongst the first to find the Dutch artist the morning after, lying unconscious with his head covered in blood. According to art critic Martin Gayford, prostitutes were to van Gogh Sisters of Mercy, providing "a little taste of paradise at 2 francs a time", and representing his single emotional and sensuous point of contact with other people. He was around this time reading about Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed with his disciples the night before his crucifixion. The story struck a deep chord, in particular, the words "If thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done". He and Gauguin had been discussing a recent series of murders of prostitutes (those of Prado and Jack the Ripper). He had recently read Émile Zola's novel "The Sin of Father Mouret", in which a character "as Father Mournet was finishing his prayers...calmly pulled a knife from his pocket, opened it, and chopped off the friar's ears."

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