Van Gogh's Chair

Van Gogh began this in late 1888, during the few weeks Gauguin was living with him in the yellow house in Arles, and reworked it early the next year. It is a plain rush-seated kitchen chair with his pipe and a twist of tobacco left on it, and he made a companion picture at the same time, Gauguin's chair, a fancier armchair with books and a candle. He meant the two to hang together, one turned left, one turned right, each standing in for the man who sat there. By the time the pair was really a pair, the friendship had already broken. Gauguin left after the night Van Gogh cut his own ear. The chair holds his things but nobody is in it.