Take Me To The Other Side

Noted prankster Vincent Van Gogh left behind a self-portrait that was only discovered when someone decided to look behind another of his masterpiece paintings, said the National Galleries of Scotland.

Van Gogh (1854 - 1890) was not at all successful during his lifetime, which ended when his longtime depression overtook him and led him to commit suicide by pistol. Long before that, he led a dissolute life, suffering from psychotic episodes and failure to maintain standards of physical health, drinking heavily, eating improperly, and hacking off a chunk of his left ear with a razor after arguing with fellow painter Paul Gauguin. 

History shows us that while the two often bickered about how much butter to slather onto a baguette, and whether a three-hour lunch was too long, the final fight came when Gauguin argued that artists should work from their imagination, and Van Gogh claimed that art should only be based on nature. The melee ended with Van Gogh asking Gauguin to imagine how Van G would look with half an ear.

The end came in 1890, but at some point before that, Van Gogh created his painting “Head of a Peasant Woman.” An interesting aspect of his painting was that, in much the same way I will use old envelopes, grocery lists, and subpoenas to leave notes for myself ("Buy envelopes!) ("Buy Groceries!") ("Respond to subpoena!"), old Vincent would save money on canvases by flipping them over and painting on the other side.  

Above, you see the painting of the peasant woman, and to the right, his selfie. For over a century, the selfie side was covered by layers of glue and cardboard, only to be revealed by a routine x-ray. It's obviously an early work, because, well, because we see his whole left ear.

Senior Curator for the National Galleries of Scotland, Frances Fowle, calls this discovery "thrilling."

“Moments like this are incredibly rare,” she said. “We have discovered an unknown work by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most important and popular artists in the world.”

While art experts figure out how to get the glue and cardboard off the canvas without wrecking either side of it, the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh will allow patrons to see the X-Ray picture through a lightbox. 

If you stop over at the house some afternoon, I will show you the X-Ray of my knee replacement, which makes my left leg look like something made of Legos.