Van Gogh Exhibition at Tate Britain英国泰特美术馆的凡·高画展

张丽娟 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.

《雪地里的矿工》（1880）是文森特·凡·高第一幅正式宣告他开始从事绘画的作品。他无法接手家族卖画的生意，又不能继续当牧师，在弟弟特奥的劝说下，他才将精力投入绘画中。在临摹了几幅画作之后，他创作了《雪地里的矿工》这幅作品。凡·高早期的这件大幅作品大约有A2纸张大小，破旧脏乱，主要以石墨创作，辅以少许水彩和白垩，正于英国泰特美术馆的“凡·高与英国”画展上展出（画展持续至2019年8月11日）。画作中，凡·高以全景构图展现了比利时博里纳日煤田的景象：矿工排成一支黑压压的队伍，步履沉重地走向远方的矿井，背景是高耸的工棚、烟囱和矿渣堆。矿工和矿井之间，荆棘拔地而起，構成一道篱笆。光秃秃的枝条，虽然画技拙笨，却彰显了这个初学者不俗的才情——笔触轻快跳脱，欣意跃然。荆棘丛生正是凡·高此后十年事业的写照。创作中，每当画到植物之处，他的笔触总是轻快起来，可植物的茎秆和新芽却又仿佛经历了生命之重的人们。现代人类负担沉重，依赖煤炭。凡·高的画作中注入自然元素（之后又加上了色彩元素）予以救赎。

凡·高拾起画笔之后，放弃了成为牧师的雄心壮志，但并未完全放弃布道。精心策划的泰特画展追溯了这位印象派大师脑海中根深蒂固的布道思想。就像布道作家一样，他爱用隐喻，而且越熟悉的越好。那些雪地中顺从的矿工，踏上的其实是人生之路：泰特美术馆把这幅画与维多利亚时代的一幅雪景并列展览，后者描绘的是前往教堂的朝圣者，凡·高隐约记得这幅画。两幅画并展凸显了凡·高爱用隐喻这一点。同样地，街道和门道也被赋予了隐喻意义。在描绘布拉班特乡村和巴黎郊区的绘画场景中，我们可以看到，凡·高抓住前辈艺术家的经典象征来申明自己对生活的感悟。1870年画家卢克·菲尔德斯用查尔斯·狄更斯那把空空的扶手椅隐喻文学巨匠的陨落。《凡·高的椅子》（1888）灵感即来源于此。凡·高偏好色彩强烈、冲击力强的意象，这一风格在太阳系列和向日葵系列作品中臻于化境。此次展览表明，虽然创作手法可能会有所变化，但凡·高的创作理念却始终如一。

凡·高的创作理念一直没变，但在第一幅画作之后，全景式布道的画面就很少见了。此次参展的不是纽约馆藏的那幅大胆尝试宇宙寓言的《星月夜》，而是奥赛博物馆收藏的这幅厚重的浅浮雕油画《罗纳河上的星夜》。它更具写实风格，主要描绘了阿尔勒的煤气灯及其在罗纳河上的倒影。凡·高更加相信这种突出细节的创作模式。他对埃米尔·伯纳德说，只有紧紧盯着“几块泥土”，注意细节，而不是凭空造出“巨大的星星”，画家才能紧紧把握任何一种“现代现实”。因此，也就有了比《凡·高的椅子》更谦卑的后继之作——圣雷米精神病院花园里那方矮矮的石凳，凡·高在离它不到四英尺远的画架上创作了这幅画。凡·高向下凝视，如此专注，我们可以深切感受到他的谦卑。

（译者单位：浙江工业大学外语学院）