【精英翻譯】的部落格

Try Van Gogh the Suburban Professional 梵谷狂野？ 試想他是住郊區的上班族

精英翻譯社轉自: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/339151/web/

文／Nina Siegal

譯／莊蕙嘉

We like to think of Vincent van Gogh as a creature of the elements: buffeted by the wind and rain, or going mad in the sunflower fields under the wilting Provençal sun.

我們喜歡把文生．梵谷想像成在野外飽經風霜的人物：承受著風吹雨打，或是在普羅旺斯炙烈陽光下的向日葵花田中發瘋。

But here’s another, just as valid, idea of van Gogh: comfortable, middle-class Vincent in a top hat and coat, commuting to work in Victorian London and spending his weekends rowing on the Thames or strolling in Kensington Gardens.

然而，梵谷另一種形象卻也同樣確有所本：自在的，穿著外套、戴著大禮帽的中產階級文生，在維多利亞時代通勤到倫敦上班，周末時在泰晤士河划船，或在肯辛頓花園漫步。

That was, indeed, van Gogh in his early 20s, when he moved to London from his native Netherlands to work for international art dealing firm Goupil & Cie as an assistant in its branch in the Covent Garden district.

那確實是20歲出頭時的梵谷，他自祖國荷蘭搬到倫敦，在國際藝術品交易公司古比爾位於柯芬園區的分公司當助手。

Van Gogh didn’t make a single painting in London, but as “Van Gogh and Britain,” a new exhibition at Tate Britain makes clear, his time in the British capital had an enduring effect on his work.

梵谷在倫敦一幅畫都沒畫，但是根據英國泰特美術館的新展覽「梵谷與英國」，他在英國首都度過的那段時光，對他的作品有長遠的影響。

The exhibition, which runs through Aug. 11, offers us a vision of van Gogh as a thinker who absorbed the cultural influences around him, especially 19th-century English literature, and often used references from British illustrations, prints and paintings in his work.

這項展覽展至8月11日，提供我們以一名思想者看待梵谷的新視角，他吸收周遭的文化影響，特別是19世紀英國文學，也常常在作品中參考英國插畫、版畫及油畫。

“Looking at his work through his relationship with Britain brings into the foreground his amazing intellectual curiosity,” said Carol Jacobi, lead curator of the show.

這項展覽的主要策展人卡蘿．傑柯比說：「透過他與英國的關係來觀看他的作品，可以突顯出他驚人的求知慾。」

Recent research into lesser-known chapters of van Gogh’s life, such as his time in Britain, have provided us with a more well-rounded image of the artist, slowly replacing the old vision of a wild man whose art came directly from the soul — though it will take a long time to shift that idea, said Sjraar van Heugten, an independent van Gogh art historian and curator based in Belgium.

最近探討梵谷生平較不為人知片段的研究，例如他在倫敦的時期，為我們提供了這位藝術家更全面的形象，慢慢取代這名狂野男子的作品直接來自靈魂的舊版本說法。以比利時為根據地的獨立梵谷藝術史學家兼策展人西賈．范休頓說，然而要改變這個想法還得花上很長的時間。

“It’s entirely clear that van Gogh was not the completely spontaneous painter who worked very fast, almost without thinking,” said van Heugten in an interview. “He read very widely: literature as well as popular science. If you carefully study his work, the image arises of a man who carefully thinks about his works and prepares.”

「毫無疑問的是，梵谷並不是全然興之所至、幾乎不經思考而快速作畫的畫家。」范休頓受訪時說。「他博覽群籍：文學和大眾科學。如果你仔細研究他的作品，出現的形象會是一名仔細思考及準備作品的男子。」

Van Gogh got his job in London at the Goupil gallery through family connections in the Netherlands. Both Vincent and his brother Theo worked first in the firm’s branch in The Hague, and about the same time that Theo moved to the Brussels branch, Vincent was sent to London. They both ended up working in the Paris headquarters, but although Theo rose through the gallery’s ranks, Vincent was fired a couple of years later.

梵谷透過荷蘭的家族人脈，得到在倫敦古比爾公司的工作。文生和他的弟弟西奧一開始都在海牙的分公司上班，差不多同一時間，西奧調至布魯塞爾分公司，而文生被派到倫敦。他們兩人最後都在巴黎總部上班。但是不同於西奧在公司內向上升遷，文生在兩三年後被開除。

“It’s really interesting to think of van Gogh as having this commercial chapter to his life,” Jacobi said.

傑柯比說：「想到梵谷人生中有這麼一段商業篇章，確實挺有趣的。」