On this day, in 1888, during a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards infamously cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute.

This holiday season, in the midst of an ever uncertain world, we'd like to take the time to express our gratitude to men like VvG, in celebration of the eccentricity that makes this world worth living.