'Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear' by Vincent van Gogh
This audio clip describes the painting Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).
It has been created for use as part of our primary school resource, The Superpower of Looking, in order to support pupils with blindness or visual impairment to take part in the lessons.
Explore the painting further in our resource, Vincent van Gogh, a selfie and a bandaged ear.
Full audio description text
The Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh painted this self-portrait using oil paints on canvas in 1889 when he was 36. It's slightly taller than wide, 60 centimetres by 50. He is very close, almost face on to us, but his left shoulder is turned away so only the right side of his face is fully towards us. It's hard to know if he's sitting or standing as his lower half is cut off by the frame. What we notice first is a white bandage padded over his right ear. The bandage is looped under his angular chin and the top of it is hidden under his blue cap that's trimmed with black fur across his brow and at the back of the neck.
The pale skin of his long thin face is painted in lots of different colours. Mostly shades of creamy yellow, but with some streaks of green where he furrows his eyebrows – the skin coming together above his long bony nose. There's pink on his high cheek bones above his hollow cheeks and an area of blue under his right eye. His eyes are green and rimmed with red and his closed lips are pale pink. His expression is serious. He seems sunk in thought.
He wears a coat, fastened by a single button near the collar, making us wonder if it's been done up by someone else. The heavy texture of the material is captured by long brushstrokes of green and grey-blue, even brown where one side of the coat overlaps the other. The downward strokes echo his sad expression and the edges of the fabric are outlined in black. Under the coat we glimpse a brown jacket or jumper, and the collar of his white shirt at the neck.
He's in a room with pale yellow walls – the paint is streaky and covers imperfectly, echoing his poorly appearance. The edge of a door with windows in its top half, stands open to the right. It's painted blue but the woodwork and glass also have dashes of yellow. There's an artist's wooden easel behind him to the left. An unfinished canvas rests on it with a few lines sketched in grey.
The one bright spot is a Japanese picture on the wall beside the door. It's edged with red and shows two Japanese women by a harbour – one holding a fan. Across a stretch of green water, Mount Fuji stands in the distance – a triangle of pale pink outlined in a strip of white and then one of blue.
