Van Gogh Exhibition at Tate Britain英國泰特美術館的凡·高畫展

張麗娟 柴昱

Miners in the Snow （1880） was Vincent van Goghs first pictorial declaration of intent. Unable to hold down work in the family picture trade or as a preacher， he was persuaded by his brother Theo to turn his energies to drawing， and after some copying exercises he came up with this sheet. A large—roughly A2—and scruffy affair， worked mostly in graphite with touches of wash and chalk， it is currently on show at the exhibition Van Gogh and Britain at Tate Britain （until 11 August）. The intent was panoramic. Van Gogh shows the workforce of the Borinage， a Belgian coalfield， as a dark， heavy-stepping procession trudging towards the distant pit with its towering work sheds， chimneys and slagheap. Between the labourers and their daily destination a thorn hedge rises： its bare twigs are the high point of this gawky beginners attempt—frisky little scribbles， full of pleasure. The drawing， with the inclusion of that plant life， stands as a ragged prospectus for the remaining ten years of Van Goghs career. His mark-making would reliably quicken wherever vegetation grew， but the stems and spurts always responded to the weight of life as people experienced it. There was a modern human condition， burdensome and coal-dependent. Infusions of nature （and later， by extension， of colour） were the remedies it needed.

Van Gogh shook off his former ambition to preach when he started to make pictures—and yet， not wholly. The Tates well-conceived show traces his minds didactic habits. Like a sermon-writer he trusted to metaphors， the more familiar the better. The meek miners in the snow are treading the road of life： the comparison at Tate with a Victorian snow scene of pilgrims going to church， half-remembered by Van Gogh， underscores the point. Avenues and gateways were similarly packed with metaphorical significance， and we are shown how Van Gogh， painting scenes in rural Brabant and in the Paris suburbs， latched onto the symbolisms of predecessor artists to affirm his own sentiments about life. Van Goghs Chair （1888） derives from the metonym that Luke Fildes devised in 1870 when he represented the death of Charles Dickens by picturing his vacant armchair. Van Goghs taste for swingeing， all-confronting symbols would come to fruition in his solar discs and sunflowers. The exhibition demonstrates that while his handiwork may alter， Van Goghs will to perorate persists.

It persists， but only rarely after that first drawing is the scope of the homily panoramic. We are not shown the wild bid at cosmic allegory that is the Starry Night now held in New York; instead， we get an emphatically concrete Starry Night from the Musée dOrsay， a chunky bas-relief in oil paint largely concerned with the gaslights of Arles and their reflections in the Rh?ne. Van Gogh better trusted his own efforts in the latter mode. It was only by attention to specifics—by staring at ‘a few clods of earth， he told Emile Bernard， rather than by conjuring up ‘stars too big—that painters could lay hold on any sort of ‘modern reality. And so we also have the Chairs humbler successor， a low stone bench in the garden of the Saint-Rémy asylum painted from an easel placed not four feet away; the intensity with which Van Gogh has committed his gaze downwards draws us into his bow of submission.

《雪地里的礦工》（1880）是文森特·凡·高第一幅正式宣告他開始從事繪畫的作品。他無法接手家族賣畫的生意，又不能繼續當牧師，在弟弟特奧的勸說下，他才將精力投入繪畫中。在臨摹了幾幅畫作之后，他創作了《雪地里的礦工》這幅作品。凡·高早期的這件大幅作品大約有A2紙張大小，破舊臟亂，主要以石墨創作，輔以少許水彩和白堊，正于英國泰特美術館的“凡·高與英國”畫展上展出（畫展持續至2019年8月11日）。畫作中，凡·高以全景構圖展現了比利時博里納日煤田的景象：礦工排成一支黑壓壓的隊伍，步履沉重地走向遠方的礦井，背景是高聳的工棚、煙囪和礦渣堆。礦工和礦井之間，荊棘拔地而起，構成一道籬笆。光禿禿的枝條，雖然畫技拙笨，卻彰顯了這個初學者不俗的才情——筆觸輕快跳脫，欣意躍然。荊棘叢生正是凡·高此后十年事業的寫照。創作中，每當畫到植物之處，他的筆觸總是輕快起來，可植物的莖稈和新芽卻又仿佛經歷了生命之重的人們。現代人類負擔沉重，依賴煤炭。凡·高的畫作中注入自然元素（之后又加上了色彩元素）予以救贖。

凡·高拾起畫筆之后，放棄了成為牧師的雄心壯志，但并未完全放棄布道。精心策劃的泰特畫展追溯了這位印象派大師腦海中根深蒂固的布道思想。就像布道作家一樣，他愛用隱喻，而且越熟悉的越好。那些雪地中順從的礦工，踏上的其實是人生之路：泰特美術館把這幅畫與維多利亞時代的一幅雪景并列展覽，后者描繪的是前往教堂的朝圣者，凡·高隱約記得這幅畫。兩幅畫并展凸顯了凡·高愛用隱喻這一點。同樣地，街道和門道也被賦予了隱喻意義。在描繪布拉班特鄉村和巴黎郊區的繪畫場景中，我們可以看到，凡·高抓住前輩藝術家的經典象征來申明自己對生活的感悟。1870年畫家盧克·菲爾德斯用查爾斯·狄更斯那把空空的扶手椅隱喻文學巨匠的隕落。《凡·高的椅子》（1888）靈感即來源于此。凡·高偏好色彩強烈、沖擊力強的意象，這一風格在太陽系列和向日葵系列作品中臻于化境。此次展覽表明，雖然創作手法可能會有所變化，但凡·高的創作理念卻始終如一。

凡·高的創作理念一直沒變，但在第一幅畫作之后，全景式布道的畫面就很少見了。此次參展的不是紐約館藏的那幅大膽嘗試宇宙寓言的《星月夜》，而是奧賽博物館收藏的這幅厚重的淺浮雕油畫《羅納河上的星夜》。它更具寫實風格，主要描繪了阿爾勒的煤氣燈及其在羅納河上的倒影。凡·高更加相信這種突出細節的創作模式。他對埃米爾·伯納德說，只有緊緊盯著“幾塊泥土”，注意細節，而不是憑空造出“巨大的星星”，畫家才能緊緊把握任何一種“現代現實”。因此，也就有了比《凡·高的椅子》更謙卑的后繼之作——圣雷米精神病院花園里那方矮矮的石凳，凡·高在離它不到四英尺遠的畫架上創作了這幅畫。凡·高向下凝視，如此專注，我們可以深切感受到他的謙卑。

（譯者單位：浙江工業大學外語學院）