旅行的藝術(shù):藝術(shù) Ⅶ 令人眼界大開的藝術(shù)-2

2

2

文森特·凡·高 [2] 在1888年的2月底來到普羅旺斯。那年他35歲，他決定獻(xiàn)身于繪畫不過是8年前的事。在這之前，他嘗試過做一名教師，繼而是一名牧師，但都不太成功。來普羅旺斯之前的兩年時間，他和他的弟弟泰奧居住在巴黎。泰奧是一名經(jīng)營藝術(shù)品的商人，并在經(jīng)濟(jì)上資助凡·高。凡·高幾乎沒有接受過什么藝術(shù)訓(xùn)練，但是那時他和保羅·高更 [3] 、土魯斯-勞特累克 [4] 已經(jīng)成了朋友，并且他的作品和他們的作品一同在克利希大街的唐布蘭咖啡館展出。

Vincent van Gogh arrived in Provence at the end of February 1888. He was thirty-five years old and had devoted himself to painting only eight years before, after failing in attempts to become first a teacher and then a priest. For the previous two years, he had been living in Paris with his brother Theo, an art dealer, who supported him financially. He had had little artistic training, but had befriended Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and exhibited his work alongside theirs at the Café du Tambourin on the Boulevard de Clichy.

凡·高回憶他坐了16個小時的火車來普羅旺斯的感覺：“我依然清晰地記得那年冬天當(dāng)我從巴黎到阿爾勒旅行時有多么興奮?！卑柪帐瞧樟_旺斯地區(qū)最繁華的小鎮(zhèn)，也是橄欖油貿(mào)易和鐵路工程的中心。凡·高到了之后，帶著他的背包行走在雪地里（那天很不尋常，積雪厚達(dá)10英寸），前往距離小鎮(zhèn)北面的防御墻不遠(yuǎn)的卡雷旅館。盡管天氣寒冷，房間很小，凡·高依然因為他的此次南行而興高采烈，他告訴他妹妹說：“我相信在這里的生活有很多地方會讓人滿意些?！?

I can still remember vividly how excited I became that winter when travelling from Paris to Arles,' Van Gogh would recall of his sixteen-hour train journey to Provence. On his arrival in Arles, the most prosperous town in the region and a centre for the olive trade and railway engineering, Van Gogh carried his bags in the snow (an exceptional ten inches had fallen that day) to the small H?tel Carrel, not far from the northern ramparts of the town. Despite the weather and the small size of his room, he was enthusiastic about his southerly move. As he told his sister, 'I believe that life here is just a little more satisfying than in many other spots.'

凡·高在阿爾勒一直待到了1889年的5月。在15個月的時間里，他創(chuàng)作出了大約200幅油畫，100幅素描，還寫了200封信——這大概稱得上他最多產(chǎn)的時期了。來到阿爾勒后最早的作品展示了覆蓋在雪下的阿爾勒鎮(zhèn)，天空是清澈的藍(lán)，大地呈現(xiàn)冰凍的桃紅。凡·高到達(dá)小鎮(zhèn)的5個星期后，春天來了。他畫了14幅油畫來展示阿爾勒小鎮(zhèn)外原野里郁郁蔥蔥的樹木。5月初，他畫了阿爾勒-伯克運(yùn)河上的朗格諾瓦吊橋，該橋位于阿爾勒鎮(zhèn)的南面。5月底，他創(chuàng)作了一些風(fēng)景畫，主題是向著阿爾卑斯山丘的拉克羅平原和蒙特梅杰荒廢的修道院。凡·高也曾試著從反方向來描繪這個景色，也就是登上修道院旁的斜坡，俯瞰阿爾勒。6月中旬，他的注意力已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)向了一個新的對象：豐收的景象，在短短兩周內(nèi)他就完成了10幅油畫。他以驚人的速度工作著，就像他所說的，“快點，快點，快點，再快點，就好像一個收割者，在熾熱的陽光下沉默著，全部的注意力只在于他的收獲?！薄拔疑踔林形缍荚诠ぷ?，在耀眼的陽光下，就像一只蟬一樣享受中午時光。我的上帝，如果我在25歲的時候就知道這個小鎮(zhèn)，而不是35歲才來到這里，那該多好！”

Van Gogh was to remain in Arles until May 1889, fifteen months during which he produced approximately 200 paintings, 100 drawings and 200 letters-a period generally agreed to have been his greatest. The earliest works show Arles lying under snow, the sky a limpid blue, the earth a frozen pink. Five weeks after Van Gogh arrived, spring came and he painted fourteen canvases of trees in bloom in the fields outside Arles. At the beginning of May, he painted the Langlois drawbridge over the Arles-Bouc Canal, on the south side of Arles, and at the end of the month, he produced a number of views from the plain of La Crau, looking towards the Alpilles hills and the ruined abbey of Montmajour. He also painted the reverse scene, climbing the rocky slopes of the abbey for a view of Arles. By the middle of June, his attention had shifted to a new subject, the harvest, of which he completed ten paintings in only two weeks. He worked with extraordinary speed: as he put it, 'quickly, quickly, quickly and in a hurry, just like a harvester who is silent under the blazing sun, intent only on his reaping'. 'I work even in the middle of the day, in the full sunshine, and I enjoy it like a cicada. My God, if I had only known this country at the age of twenty-five, instead of coming here when I was thirty-five years old!'

后來，在向弟弟解釋自己為什么要從巴黎搬到阿爾勒的原因時，凡·高說了兩點原因：因為他想“畫南方”，因為他想通過自己的作品使別人“看到”南方。雖然他不確定自己是否有這種力量，但他從未動搖過他這個在理論上可以實現(xiàn)的信念——也就是說，藝術(shù)家能夠畫出世界的一部分，并且最終使其他人的眼界因之而大開。

Later, explaining to his brother why he had moved from Paris to Arles, Van Gogh offered two reasons: because he had wanted to 'paint the south' and because he had wanted, through his work, to help other people to 'see' it. However unsure he was of his own powers to do this, he never wavered in his faith that the project was theoretically possible-that is, that artists could paint a portion of the world and in consequence open the eyes of others to it.

凡·高之所以堅信藝術(shù)具有如此令人大開眼界的力量，那是因為，他經(jīng)常是作為一名觀眾來感受這種力量。從他的祖國荷蘭移居法國以來，凡·高發(fā)現(xiàn)文學(xué)也有這種特別的力量。他讀過巴爾扎克、福樓拜、左拉和莫泊桑的作品，并且非常感謝他們?yōu)樗蜷_眼界去了解法國社會和民眾心理的動態(tài)?！栋ɡ蛉恕废蛩宫F(xiàn)了當(dāng)?shù)刂挟a(chǎn)階級的生活，《高老頭》讓他了解身處巴黎，身無分文卻雄心勃勃的學(xué)生們——他在身處的社會里大體辨認(rèn)出了從這些作品中讀到的角色。

If he had such faith in the eye-opening power of art, it was because he had often experienced it as a spectator. Since moving to France from his native Holland, he had felt it particularly in relation to literature. He had read the works of Balzac, Flaubert, Zola and Maupassant and been grateful to these writers for opening his eyes to the dynamics of French society and psychology. Madame Bovary had taught him about provincial middle-class life and Père Goriot about penniless ambitious students in Paris-and he now recognized the characters from these novels in society at large.

繪畫作品也以相似的方式打開了凡·高的視野。凡·高不住地贊揚(yáng)其他畫家，說自己透過他們的作品看到了某些顏色和氛圍。比如，委拉斯開茲 [5] 讓他認(rèn)識了灰色的世界。委拉斯開茲的多幅油畫是以簡樸的伊比利亞家居為題材。在那里，墻是由磚塊或是一種顏色陰暗的灰泥砌成的。到中午的時候，百葉窗被放下來，用于阻止熱氣進(jìn)入屋內(nèi)，這個時候主導(dǎo)的色彩就是幽暗的灰色；有時百葉窗并沒有完全關(guān)緊，或是有一部分脫落，會射進(jìn)明亮的黃色光線。這種效果并非由委拉斯開茲發(fā)明，在他之前就有許多人見過這樣的情景，但是幾乎沒有人有這種力量或是天賦，去捕捉這些效果,并將它們轉(zhuǎn)化為可以與人交流的體驗。就好像一個發(fā)現(xiàn)新大陸的探險者，委拉斯開茲已經(jīng)（至少對于凡·高來說）用他的名字命名了這場在光的世界里的探索。

Paintings had similarly opened his eyes. Van Gogh frequently paid tribute to painters who had allowed him to see certain colours and atmospheres. Velzquez, for example, had given him a map that allowed him to see grey. Several of Velzquez's canvases depicted humble Iberian interiors, with walls made of brick or a sombre plaster, where even in the middle of the day, when the shutters were closed to protect the house from the heat, the dominant colour was a sepulchral grey, occasionally pierced, where the shutters were not quite closed or a section had been chipped off them, by a shaft of brilliant yellow. Velzquez had not invented such effects, many would have witnessed them before him, but few had had the energy or talent to capture them and turn them into communicable experience. Like an explorer with a new continent, Velázquez had, for Van Gogh at least, given his name to a discovery in the world of light.

凡·高在阿爾勒鎮(zhèn)中心的許多小飯店里吃過飯。這些小飯店的墻通常是陰暗的，百葉窗緊閉，而屋外卻是陽光燦爛。有一次午餐時間，他寫信給他弟弟，說他偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)某些完全“委拉斯開茲式”的東西：“我所在的這間飯館非常奇怪。它全部是灰色的……一種‘委拉斯開茲式’的灰色——就像在《紡紗的女人》中的一樣，甚至連委拉斯開茲的畫作中那一條條從百葉窗縫隙透入的細(xì)細(xì)的亮光都不缺……在廚房里，有一個老女人和一個又矮又胖的仆人，他們的穿著也是灰、黑、白三色……這是純粹的委拉斯開茲式?！?

Van Gogh ate in many small restaurants in the centre of Arles. The walls were often dark, the shutters were closed and the sunlight outside was bright. One lunchtime, he wrote to his brother explaining that he had stumbled upon something utterly Velázquezian: 'This restaurant where I am is very strange. It is grey all over … a Velasquez grey-like in the Spinning Women -and even the very narrow, very fierce ray of sunlight through a blind, like the one that slants across Velasquez's picture, is not missing … In the kitchen, ［there's］ an old woman and a short, fat servant also in grey, black, white … it's pure Velasquez.'

對于凡·高來說，衡量每一個杰出畫家的標(biāo)志就是他們是否能夠讓我們更加清楚地看到世界的某些部分。如果說委拉斯開茲讓凡·高了解了灰色和大廚師們粗糙的臉，那么，莫奈就是落日的導(dǎo)覽人，倫勃朗讓他了解了晨光，維米爾 [6] 則讓他了解了阿爾勒鎮(zhèn)的少女（他在阿爾勒附近看到了一個少女之后，寫信告訴他弟弟說：“她簡直就是維米爾的畫中人?！保?。一陣大雨過后，羅訥的天空讓他聯(lián)想到了葛飾北齋 [7] ，而米利特的麥子和海上圣馬利亞 [8] 的年輕女子讓他聯(lián)想起契馬布埃 [9] 和喬托 [10] 。

It was for Van Gogh the mark of every great painter to allow us to see certain aspects of the world more clearly. If Velázquez was his guide to grey and the coarse faces of large cooks, then Monet was his guide to sunsets, Rembrandt to morning light and Vermeer to the adolescent girls of Arles ('A perfect Vermeer,' he explained to his brother after spotting one example near the arena). The sky over the Rh?ne after a heavy rain shower reminded him of Hokusai, the wheat of Millet and the young women in Saintes-Maries de la Mer of Cimabue and Giotto.