在 Irving Stone 所著的《梵谷傳》(Lust for Life)裡,有一段可能是作者杜撰的情節:當時梵谷從聖瑞米北返,暫住巴黎西奧家中。他將西奧細心幫他留下的作品仔細按期分類,選出最能把握他精神的速寫和油畫,一張一張地掛起來,然後請西奧和喬安娜上樓。
「讓我帶你們去參觀一個梵谷的畫展……」他說。「準備受一次折磨吧。」 ……
「當時我住在艾田,」文生說,「父親有一次說過,惡中絕對生不出善,我當時回答他,說是不但可能,而且在藝術裡還必須如此。如果你們跟我來,我的好弟弟,好妹妹,我可以引你們去看一個人的經歷,他開始的時候畫得很粗,像一個笨手笨腳的小孩,但是下了十年有恆的苦工,終於達到了……可是這一點還是由你們自己來判斷吧!」
順著年代的次序,他領著他們從一室走到另一室。他們像藝術陳列館中的三位觀眾,站著觀賞等於一個人的一生的這些作品。他們感到這位藝術家緩慢而艱苦的成長,感到他探向成熟的表現,巴黎時期的激昂,阿羅時期他有力的呼聲奮然迸發,將他多年來的苦練萃於筆端……接著是……那打擊……聖瑞米的作品……維持創造之火於不滅的努力掙扎,接著是那緩緩的下沉……下沉……下沉……下沉……
他們用陌生人偶然的眼光參觀這畫展。在短短的半小時內,他們瀏覽了面前這個人一生的總結。
(節錄自余光中譯《梵谷傳》)
在觀賞這次台北的「燃燒的靈魂」梵谷特展時,我不斷地回想起《梵谷傳》的這段敘述。Irving Stone 所寫的原文如下:
"When I was living in Etten" said Vincent, "father once remarked that good could never grow out of bad. I replied that not only it could, but that in art it must. If you will follow me, my dear brother and sister, I will show you the story of a man who began crudely, like an awkward child, and after ten years of constant labour, arrived at... but you shall decide that for yourselves."
He led them, in the proper chronological sequence, from room to room. They stood like three visitors in an art gallery, looking at this work which was a man's life. They felt the slow, painful growth of the artist, the fumbling toward maturity of expression, the upheaval that had taken place in Paris, the passionate outburst of his powerful voice in Arles, which caught up all the strands of his years of labour... and then ... the smash... the St. Remy canvases... the crucial striving to keep up to the blaze of creation, and the falling slowly away... falling... falling... falling...
They looked at the exhibit through the eyes of casual strangers. Before them they saw, in a brief half hour, the recapitulation of one man's stay on earth.
走下樓梯,在一樓展出的,主要是油畫,從努能的織工開始:
↓ (No. 81, 6, 16) Weaver, Interior with Three Small Windows, Oil on canvas 61.0 x 93.0 cm. Nuenen: July, 1884 F 37, JH 501