Art

Van Gogh’s Missing Ear Due to Encounter with Musai

Last night on the Grimm, Nick struggled with the kiss of the Musai, a Wesen equivalent of the Muse, and we discovered an interesting connection to two master artists: Van Gogh and Gauguin. Just to warn you, spoilers may be ahead. Read at your own risk.

“I don’t force them,” says Chloe, the Musai, as being even closer to her makes Nick hers, but that’s the catch… No one can ever possess her. The manifestation of desire is purely natural around her. The concept of the Muse is seen throughout many cultures. In Celtic myth, the muse becomes almost vampiric in the end, living off the essence of the creativity and addiction of the artistic lover, while he dies.

As the plot progresses, Monroe, Rosalee, Hank, and Juliette must band together and save him, as he saved Juliette. Monroe’s research leads to the discovery that the mysterious woman is is a Musai, a Wesen whose true form resembles a cross between a sparkly Twilight vampire and the blue pointy-eared Na’vi from Avatar.

Of course, Musai have a thing for artists or that yet to manifest potential within, as Monroe discovers in his reading. From a mere kiss, the victim becomes obsessed with the Musai, with the relationship terminating always in madness and/or death. In this episode (“Kiss of the Muse”), the Musai tells Nick that to be with her… he must kill her obsessive, stalker artist ex-boyfriend Anton. The key to saving Nick is Juliette.

We also learn through Monroe’s research that a Wesen Musai apparently had a hand in Van Gogh slicing off his ear. The Musai, in this fictional world, is Rachel, a woman who posed several times for Van Gogh and Gauguin. Gauguin had charged Nick’s ancestor to figure out the cause of Van Gogh’s madness.

Stories indicate that when Van Gogh and Gauguin lived together one night they had dinner and later that evening Van Gogh present a razor in Gauguin’s presence and threatened to kill him. Gauguin locked himself in his quarters, and Van Gogh returned to his, using the razor to slice off an ear. Later he presented his muse and mistress Rachel with the ear. She was horrified and he was briefly hospitalized.

We have a new theory now, and artists…be wary of your muses.