It is believed Vincent cut his ear off because he was tormented by voices, and was having hallucinations. In 1888 he was diagnosed with some sort of epilepsy which caused him to have nervous attacks. Four months later he decided to commit himself to the St. Paul-de-Mausole Asylum for awhile. However his nervous attacks and depression did not stop. In 1890, he decided he was incurable and attempted suicide (Moore 944-947).
It was July 27 when Vincent went to the Chateau d"Auvers to kill himself. He leaned his easel against a haystack and went to the Chateau wall. He held a revolver to his chest, pulled the trigger, and fainted. When he came to, he looked for his weapon but it was gone. He then walked to a friend's house who called a doctor. No vital organ had been hit but doctors decided to let him die if he wanted to. An infection set in the wound and a period of suffocation came causing him to die July 29, 1890 (Moore 944-947).
Despite his depression, Vincent created many great works of art like The Starry Night and The Vase with Twelve Sunflowers. Gogh has become virtually an archetype of the modern artist-a man ill at ease with himself and society and restless in the personal as well as the artistic sphere (Moore 944-947).
Salvador Dali grew up in a comfortable progressive bourgeois household that encouraged intellectual pursuits. Dali was not the only child of Salvador Dali Cusi and Felipa Domenech Ferres. Their first born, Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali Domenech whom Dali was named for, died in infancy. He also has a younger sister named Anne Maria. Dali's parents believed that he was the re-incarnation of his dead brother. He even admitted that the ghostly memory of his dead brother haunted him his whole life. This is why he was spoiled. The dualistic stresses imposed upon him living as himself and his dead brother caused him to have a particular obsession with decay and purification (Auffenberg 827-830).