PARIS: AI Vincent Van Gogh is patient but unimpressed by yet another question about his chopped-off ear.

“I apologise for any confusion but it seems you are mistaken,” says the great painter’s avatar, in the sort of testy tone familiar to anyone who has toyed with AI language models.

“I only cut off a small part of my ear lobe,” he insists (in fact, there are multiple accounts of how the artist mutilated his ear).

The artificial intelligence Van Gogh appears on a video screen at the end of a blockbuster exhibition at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. The exhibition, running until February, is dedicated to the final weeks of his life in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of the French capital.

Van Gogh shot himself with a rusty pistol in 1890 aged 37. It took him two days to die. But the AI Vincent is surprisingly well-versed in 21st century therapy-speak.

“While I did face mental health struggles, my move to Auvers-sur-Oise was not motivated by a desire to end my life,” he says.

As the 40 or so paintings at the Orsay exhibition make clear, his final weeks were extraordinarily prolific, full of masterpieces including “The Church at Auvers”, “Wheatfield with Crows” and his very last, “Tree Roots”.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2023