艺术的力量（2006）

Trouble was, according to Theo, they were unsellable,
下笔浓重 画面上一块块儿的模模糊糊的不知道是什么东西
dense, clotted, murky things.
亲爱的提奥，亲爱的提奥啊
My dear Theo, my dear Theo, my dear Theo,
你也太不厚道啦
what's so very contrary about you is that,
你总得回个信儿吧
one sends you something and one hears nothing in reply,
难道连信都懒得去写了吗？！
and you do not lift a finger!
但是提奥又不能说：“你的画我卖♥♥不掉，搞不到钱”绝不能这么说
But one is not allowed to say, ''I cannot manage on the money.'' No.
我觉得还得说上一句 我是不是不应该去问
And I should like to add that I shan't be asking you
对于我的作品 你是满意还是不满意呢
whether you approve or disapprove of anything I do.
但是自小一起长大的弟弟对梵高非常充满信心 他很是忠于这个任性又充满激♥情♥的梵高哥哥
But baby brother believed, and stuck by his cantankerous, passionate Vincent.
并不时每个人的忍♥耐力都很强
Not everyone was in it for the long haul.
对于梵高想把自己打造成一个荷兰好主妇 西嫣已经感到厌倦了
Sien got tired of Vincent's campaign to turn her into a good Dutch hausfrau,
她最终又消失在海牙的烟花柳巷之中
and disappeared back into the Hague gaslight.
确切的说 有谁不会离开文森特？
Which leaves Vincent where, exactly?
他已经30岁了 正如他说的那样 脸上的皱纹使他看起来至少有40岁了
He's 30 years old but, as he says, his wrinkles make him look more like 40.
弟弟提奥是他唯一的经济来源
For money, he depends entirely on his brother, Theo.
说到性♥爱♥ 他更是由不适合到了不可能的地步
For sex and love, he goes from the unsuitable to the impossible.
而且还有这个他倾注心血的迟来的新职业
And as for his efforts in his belated new profession,
这一切在梵高眼中只是被轻描淡写的说成是有些不平坦而已
well, they're best generously described as uneven.
所以当回到父母身边时候 他已经不再是他们的心肝宝贝了
So when he lopes back to his parents' house,he's not exactly the apple of their eye.
我本能的意识到父母是很想念我的
I sense what Father and Mother think of me instinctively.
可我不怎么会说话
I do not say intelligently.
他们并没有欢迎我回来的意思
They shrink from taking me into the house,
在他们眼里我就好像是条脏兮兮的流浪狗
as they might shrink from taking in a large shaggy dog with wet paws.
“他会碍每个人的事儿 声音还特别的大”
''He'll get in everyone's way, and his bark is so loud.
一句话
''In short,
他是个丑恶的怪物
''he is a filthy beast.''
然后 就有事情发生了
And then, it happens.
“吃土豆的人”是梵高的第一幅杰作
The Potato Eaters is his first knockout masterpiece.
这幅作品是梵高到目前为止所有感想的一个摘要
It's a resume of everything he's felt and thought up to now.
这些所感所想将会令他成为一名 其实已经存在的革命艺术家
Everything that would make him a revolutionary artist is already here.
被选用的浓黑色彩并不仅仅是为了表现绘画效果
The dark, thick colour was chosen not just for pictorial effect,
而且从哲学角度 你会感受到些什么的
but you might say, philosophically, to say something.
而且那绝不是什么迷人的乡村风情
And that something isn't meant to be charmingly rustic.
我的意思是 看过画之后你会有多忧郁？
I mean, how brown can you get?
如他解释道 这是粪棕色 灰棕色
This is manure brown,the grey brown, as he explained,
它们是满是灰尘的锄头在清洗之前的颜色
of dusty spuds before they've been rinsed.
由于不是正规画家 梵高就像是个大老粗
Lost in total identification,van Gogh paints like a clod.
沾满颜料的画笔在他手中就像是一件劳动者的工具
The heavy, loaded brush doing its own manual labour.
画面看来就象是被挖过铲过而不是被画笔画过
The picture seems trowelled and dug, rather than painted.
创作者和创作主体达到了一种完全的结合状态
There's total union between painter and subject.
一切尽在掌中
It's all in the hands.
我曾经尝试着想说出那些想法
I've tried to bring out the idea that
这些伴着灯光吃土豆的人
these people, eating potatoes by the light of their lamp,
挖地的手和伸向盘子的手是一样的
have dug the earth with the selfsame hands that they're putting into the dish.
这一餐是他们辛勤劳作换来的 他们当之无愧
Manual labour, a meal honestly earned.
任何一个想描绘那些看起来很软弱的农民的人 自己都穿的很体面
Anyone who wants to paint peasants looking namby-pamby had best suit himself.
这几乎就像是他在尝试着使用文雅的土黄色和赭色为自己的作品着色
It's almost as if he's having a go at the polite siennas and decorous burnt umbers
因为这些作品将来要送到海牙和伦敦销♥售♥
of the drawing-room paintings he'd had to sell in the Hague and London.
他们是一群高雅的食客
It's this lot who dine in a state of grace.
这一份土豆晚餐 不啻是底层人♥民♥的一次圣餐礼
Their potato supper, a holy communion of the toiling class.
他知道自己创作出了一幅充满力量的代表公正的作品
He knows he's done something chock-full of power, magisterial.
兴奋之余 他把作品送到了提奥那里
So excitedly he sends it off to Theo,
而当提奥还在咕哝着说文森特那晦涩难懂的作品是如何如何的难卖♥♥时
who moans about how hard it is to sell Vincent's dark pictures,
巴黎却是一片欢快景象
when everything in Paris is bright.
提奥
Theo,
对于我来说情况已经很明显了
it's become very apparent to me
你不能够再那么不关心我的作品了
that you couldn't care less about my work.
去年我之所以对你的态度不甚满意
What I've had against you this last year is a kind of relapse into
那是因为你对我的态度已经堕落为一种冷淡的尊敬
cold respectability,
那会令我觉得自己是多么的没有出息
which to me seems sterile and futile.
但是有些事情就好象是和他过不去
But something's niggling at him.
也许他毕竟也从法国人那里学到了些什么
Maybe he does after all have something to learn from the French.
也许如果他也呆在那里，和自己的弟弟生活在一起
Maybe, if he was there,if he was living with his brother,
他们兄弟二人就能撼动当时那个冷淡的艺术界
together they could shake the art world out of its indifference.
通常的说法是当梵高这只荷兰青蛙被印象派吻过之后
The usual story is the Dutch frog kissed by Impressionism
就变成了一个创作彩色绘画的王子
and turned into the prince of colour painting.
文森特和他的作品最终放出了光芒
Vincent and his art at last lightened up.
他的画风来了个180度大转弯
Away with the northern murk,
深红色 钴蓝色 铬黄色
bring on the tubes of carmine,cobalt and chrome yellow.
这也不全是错误的
It's not all wrong.
文森特学会了运用色彩 并沉迷其中
Vincent does get colour, becomes addicted to it,
他把才华倾注其上 一股脑儿都表现在了画布上
consuming its brilliance,disgorging it onto the canvas.
曾经有一阵子 他的表现在人们看来像是一个入门级的印象派画家
And, for a while, he does what you're supposed to do as a trainee Impressionist.
在塞纳河下游的阿斯尼斯（巴黎西北部城市）捕捉住了光影你就把握住了关键
Down by the river at Asnies,trap the light and you've got the point.
所以什么东西都变得色彩斑驳起来
So everything is speckled and freckled,dappled and mottled.
恰恰在那个时候 周一是毕沙罗
Right then, it's Pissarro on Monday.
看看在这家饭店装饰的色编码点点
Look at the colour-coded dots in this restaurant,
你就会发现他原来是在完成 自己的点彩派画家的家庭作业
and you'll see him doing his pointillist homework.
周二是修拉（法国点彩派画家）
Seurat on Tuesday.
噢 文森特做的也不赖嘛
Oh, Vincent could do it all right,
但是两者的一些东西也表现出了一个印象派画家的特征
but there was something altogether too decorative about the Impressionists,
即在自然光景中涤炼人类的存在
marinading the meat of human existence in the rinse of their luminescence.
梵高描绘自然的作品
Van Gogh's version of nature would always be earthier, clumsier,
永远都是那么质朴粗陋，气息浓烈，更加真实却愈加难卖♥♥
smellier, truer and still unsellable.
在梵高看来 这一定是提奥的错
It must be Theo's fault, thinks Vincent,
然后在当地一家咖啡馆组织了一次展览
and organises a show of pictures in a local cafe,
一双破靴子和剪下来的向日葵
hobnail boots and cut sunflowers.
从技巧角度上说 这些还有生命 但是仍然很空洞
Technically, these are still lives,but there's nothing still about them.
那双靴子其实就是他的自画像
The boots are a self-portrait,tramping the long, weary march of the pilgrim
是在向如天堂般的驿站漫长沉重的朝圣旅途中的自画像
towards a heavenly resting place.
而向日葵很难说是静物描绘
And the sunflowers, hardly the nature morte,the dead nature of their billing,
这些作品显得危险而神秘
these things are threateningly mysterious.
葵花籽竖立着带着一种难以压制的生命力竖立着
The black seed heads bristling with irrepressible life force.
有机体从一颗燃烧的恒星（太阳=向日葵）中狂暴的生根 发芽
Organisms landed violently from a burning star.
那时文森特开起来并没有加入印象派画家俱乐部的想法
Vincent hardly seems to be joining the Impressionists' club, then.
所以他迷上另一个不当的人也就不怎么奇怪了
So it's not surprising Vincent gets a crush on another misfit.
那个人是一位游离在印象派边缘的艺术家
An artist who's hanging around the edge of the Impressionist circle.
此人具有一种富有创造性的危险性
A painter who carries with him an air of creative danger.
保罗.高更
Paul Gauguin.
撇开共有的坎坷经历不说 这也并不意味着他们好像共同点就很多
It wasn't as if they had much in common, apart from their hard-luck stories.
高更是个圆滑的股票经纪人这让他能够游离于艺术的边缘地带
Gauguin, the dodgy stockbroker, allowed to lurk on the edge of art.
文森特是一个牧师 混迹于底层社会
Vincent, the gin-soaked preacher down in the muck.
他们俩会令众人有多难受啊
And how uneasy they made everyone.
如果梵高伸出一个令人不爽的拇指的话
If van Gogh stuck out like a sore thumb,
高更则会把这个手指戳进印象派大♥师♥的眼睛里
Gauguin poked it in the eye of the Impressionist bigwigs.
而且高更越是诅咒那些艺术品商人 他就会醉的越频繁
And the more Gauguin cursed the dealers, the more he screwed and drank,
而文森特则会在有大♥师♥在场时越发逞能
the more puppyish Vincent became in the presence of a master.
但是当高更离开巴黎向西前往布列塔尼时 文森特却没有跟他而去
But when Gauguin left Paris, gone west to Brittany, Vincent didn't follow.
他需要一个更温暖更利于重生的地方
He needed somewhere warmer, more regenerating.
那里将远离巴黎艺术界的冰冷
A place where the chilliness of the Paris art scene
对于喜欢收集日本版画的文森特来说
would give way to what Vincent, the collector of Japanese prints,
那里就是一个僧侣眼中禅修之路
imagined as a monkishly pure way of life.
禅与橄榄油
Zen with olive oil.
1888年春季 沐浴在普罗旺斯的温暖阳光下
And in the spring of 1888, under the sun of Provence,
梵高能感受到生命力在蠢蠢欲动
Vincent can feel the life force stirring.
就像向日葵 文森特把视线转向了生机勃勃的光影世界中去了
Like the sunflower, Vincent turns his face into the nourishing light.
提奥
Theo,
在面对自然界那具有压倒性的美丽面前 不管你觉得自己有多么的无能
no matter how incompetent you feel in the face of the overwhelming beauty of nature,
你也得去选择一个开始
you have to make a start.
同样 另一处风景
Herewith, another landscape.
麦田具有各种色调 旧金黄色 铜色 金绿色
For wheat has all the hues of old gold, copper, green-gold,
或者金红色 金黄色 铜黄色 红绿色
or red-gold, yellow-gold, yellow-bronze, red-green.
看看那些播种者吧
Just have a look at the sower.
这是梵高对让-弗朗西斯科.米勒一幅作品的另一种表现
It's his take on an older painting by Jean-Francois Millet.
文森特的版本呼应了米勒对劳动者那种充满感情的赞美
Vincent's version echoes Millet's lyrical anthem to noble toil.
但是米勒作品中的播种者是站在土壤中的
But Millet's sower is rooted to the soil,
而梵高作品中的人物却漂浮在一张鲜艳漂亮的毯子上
while van Gogh's floats on a carpet of brilliance,
就像耶稣在水面上踏波而行一样
like Jesus walking on water.
这一幕就像是在头顶烈日下
A scene of drudgery is dissolved into the fertility miracle
田间劳作场景仿佛融入了一个正在上演的奇迹之中