 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
作品介绍
Painted in October 1889, Parc de l'hôpital Saint-Paul dates
from one of the richest and most important periods of Vincent van
Gogh's life. The picture is filled with the rhythmic swirls that
lend his greatest paintings their unique energy. The cypress
especially reaches for the sky, a darting series of curlicues
thrusting heavenwards, making all the more dramatic an impression
by its contrast with the lighter, scintillating, ever-shifting
forms of the rest of the landscape. Meanwhile, two trees in the
foreground snake their way across the painting like incongruous
bars, adding a strange spontaneity to Van Gogh's choice of view,
which comes to resemble a snapshot in its unusual
composition.
It was during his voluntary confinement at the asylum of
Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, that Van Gogh
created some of the greatest of his paintings, especially in the
latter part of 1889. Perhaps surprisingly, many of the masterpieces
dating from this period were painted in the wake of one of his
fits, after which he had been unable to use oils for six weeks. His
return to oil painting in September 1889 after a month and a half
was characterised by a new-found boldness and enthusiasm. The life
that pulses through the striations that comprise the forms of Parc
de l'hôpital Saint-Paul has an electric vitality to it. Van Gogh
appears to have tapped into the raw energy of existence itself,
creating a shimmering painting that appears to show some underlying
spiritual and organic dimension to nature.
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
Van Gogh had originally gone to Saint-Paul-de-Mausole
following a string of debilitating fits in Arles, where he had been
living with Gauguin. In the most renowned of these attacks, Van
Gogh had had an altercation with Gauguin and had then cut off part
of his own ear and given it to a local prostitute, before being
been found later bleeding in bed. The townspeople gradually came to
pressure the authorities to have the artist confined in hospital,
and through the intervention of some of the senior doctors who were
sympathetic to him, he was eventually placed in the care of the
asylum, which lay some fourteen miles outside Arles, occupying a
building that had originally been a 12th-century Augustinian
monastery. At certain points during his time in Saint-Rémy, Van
Gogh had a varying degree of access to the world around him;
sometimes he was confined to his rooms, sometimes allowed to wander
the countryside or even visit Arles. In the wake of his fit in
July, though, he was confined to the grounds of Saint-Paul itself
for some time. This, to Van Gogh, was no great hardship, as the
slightly ramshackle grounds themselves provided endless themes to
be painted. Earlier, he had written to Theo extolling the virtues
of the gardens:
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
'Since I have been here, the deserted garden, planted with
large pines beneath which the grass grows tall and unkempt and
mixed with various weeds, has sufficed for my work, and I have not
yet gone outside. However, the country round St. Rémy is very
beautiful and little by little I shall probably widen my field of
endeavour' (Van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh,
London, 1958, Vol. III, no. 592, p. 173).
He later went into more detail in describing some of the
effects of the light and colour on his surroundings, providing a
catalogue of the sights that itself reads in parts as though he is
inventorising the visual contents of Parc de l'hôpital
Saint-Paul:
'From time to time there are moments when nature is superb,
autumn effects glorious in colour, green skies contrasting with
foliage in yellows, oranges, greens, earth in all the violets,
heat-withered grass among which, however, the rains have given a
last energy to certain plants, which again start putting forth
little flowers of violet, pink, blue, yellow. Things that one is
quite sad not to be able to reproduce. 'And skies - like our skies
in the North, but the colours of the sunsets and sunrises more
varied and clearer...
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
'I also have two views of the park and the asylum, where this
place looked very pleasing. I tried to reconstruct the thing as it
might have been, simplifying and accentuating the haughty,
unchanging character of the pines and cedar clumps against the
blue' (Van Gogh, ibid., no. 610, p. 222).
In his catalogue raisonné of Van Gogh's works, A.M. Hammacher
considered Parc de l'hôpital Saint-Paul to be one of the two views
that the artist mentioned here (Jan Hulsker considered this
reference to be to two other pictures, F642 and F643, but
nonetheless considered the present work to form part of the same
group of pictures). Meanwhile, de la Faille considered Parc de
l'hôpital Saint-Paul to have been the latter work to which Van Gogh
referred when he wrote describing two pictures: 'I have a study of
two yellowing poplars against a background of mountains and a view
of the park here, an autumn effect in which the drawing is a little
more nave and more-home-felt' (Van Gogh, ibid., no. 609, p. 221).
Certainly, there is a directness in this painting, a deliberate
navet that adds to its engaging charm. Indeed, in looking at this
intimate landscape, one can well understand the honesty of Van
Gogh's earlier reassurance to his brother that, 'You will see that,
considering my life is spent mostly in the garden, it is not so
unhappy' (Van Gogh, ibid., no. 592, p. 174). These grounds provided
an endless variety of scenes and sights and visual effects, and it
is a reflection of Van Gogh's amazing enthusiasm for rendering the
world around him in oils, as well as a result of his confinement,
that he created a range of pictures during this period showing a
similar view as is seen in Parc de l'hôpital Saint-Paul, sometimes
even showing the same trees and steps. It is perhaps a mark of Van
Gogh's own appreciation of the success of this particular view that
it can be seen hanging on the wall of his studio in his own
painting of the window in his room at Saint-Paul.
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
The directness with which Van Gogh channelled the world around
him into his pictures was in part inspired by his love of Japanese
art, and indeed in both its spontaneity and its composition, Parc
de l'hôpital Saint-Paul appears to owe a great deal to his love of
Hiroshige in particular. Van Gogh copied several of Hiroshige's
prints, and here appears to have created a landscape view that,
through the use of the barring trees in the foreground, echoes
perfectly some of the striking compositions in his Japanese
predecessors woodblock prints. Van Gogh had in fact headed to the
South of France, to Arles, originally in search of a more
accessible version of the Japanese landscape. As he had earlier
written to his brother, justifying the additional expenses of
staying in Arles: 'About this staying on in the South, even if it
is more expensive, consider: we like Japanese painting, we have
felt its influence, all the impressionists have that in common;
then why not go to Japan, that is to say the equivalent of Japan,
the South?' (Van Gogh, ibid., no. 500, p. 589). He then expanded
upon the subject, explaining that it was the manner of execution as
well as the sight of the landscape that interested him in Japanese
art and which he sought to echo in his own unique way:
 梵高 圣保罗医院公园 Parc de l'hôpital
Saint-Paul 局部
'I wish you could spend some time here, you would feel it
after a while, one's sight changes: you see things with an eye more
Japanese, you feel colour differently. The Japanese draw quickly,
very quickly, like a lightning flash, because their nerves are
finer, their feeling simpler.
'I am convinced that I shall set my individuality free simply
by staying on here' (Van Gogh, ibid., no. 500, p. 590).
This, of course, was to become all too true. Van Gogh's rapid
development, in part catalysed by the presence of Gauguin and the
intense discussions about art that the pair had, involved his
thrusting himself into his paintings with a new reckless abandon.
There was something of the medium to Van Gogh's intense views of
the world around him, and his manic quality is reflected as much in
the frantic and enthusiastic brushwork of Parc de l'hôpital
Saint-Paul as it is in his sheer output during this period. In
terms of execution, he has taken a couple of lessons from
Neo-Impressionism and twisted them to his own purposes and needs.
The colours have been applied not with the backdrop of logic and
colour theory of Paul Signac, whom he had met earlier in the year,
but instead with boldness and passion. That Van Gogh was pushing
himself too far was all too painfully evident to his brother, who
wrote even before the July fit had struck celebrating the paintings
but worrying about the strains of the process of their execution.
'Your last pictures have given me much food for thought on the
state of your mind at the time you did them,' Theo wrote:
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
'In all of them there is a vigour in the colours which you
have not achieved before this in itself constitutes a rare quality
but you have gone further than that, and if there are some who try
to find the symbolic by torturing the form, I find this in many of
your canvases, namely in the expre*ssion of the epitome of your
thoughts on nature and living creatures, which you feel to be so
strongly inherent in them. But how your brain must have laboured,
and how you have risked everything to the very limit, where vertigo
is inevitable!
'For this reason, my dear brother, when you tell me that you
are working again, in which from one point of view I rejoice, for
by this you avoid lapsing into the state of mind which many of the
poor wretches who are taken care of in the establishment where you
are staying succumb to, it worries me a little to think about it,
for you ought not to venture into the mysterious regions which it
seems one may skim cautiously but not penetrate with impunity
before you recover completely. Don't take more trouble than
necessary, for if you do nothing more than simply tell the story of
what you see, there will be enough qualities in it to make your
pictures last' (Theo van Gogh, ibid., no. T10, pp. 543-44).
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
This was to become prescient both as a judgement on the
lasting legacy of Van Gogh's pictures, and as a presentiment of
what was to come in terms of his brother's health. Van Gogh was a
rational, modern-thinking man, and yet his illness was accompanied
by fits of completely irrational terror, a fact that almost
embarrassed him: 'I am astonished that with the modern ideas that I
have, and being so ardent an admirer of Zola and de Goncourt and
caring for things of art as I do, that I have attacks such as a
superstitious man might have and that I get perverted and frightful
ideas about religion such as never came into my head in the North'
(Van Gogh, ibid., no. 607, p. 214). Van Gogh's rational mind was
being disrupted by his emotional state, and yet it was this curious
intensity of experience and existence that makes paintings such as
Parc de l'hôpital Saint-Paul such palpable, almost tangible traces
of life and the beauty of nature in all its forms.
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
It was during precisely this period, so shortly prior to his
death in Auvers the following year, that Van Gogh was beginning to
receive more and more acclaim within a small group of artists and
admirers. This was the period of his burgeoning fame, the founding
of his immense legacy. While he famously sold almost none of his
paintings during his lifetime, those which he presented as gifts or
offered in exchanges with his friends were highly treasured, for
instance the picture of herrings he had given to Signac earlier
that year. It was in itself a tribute to the respect he inspired
that Gauguin had made his way from Pont-Aven to Arles. Likewise, he
was also being considered for more exhibitions and even benefited
from favourable press in an article written by J.J. Isaäcson the
same year that Parc de l'hôpital Saint-Paul was painted:
'Who interprets for us in form and colour the mighty life, the
great life once more becoming aware of itself in this nineteenth
century? I know of one, a solitary pioneer, he stands alone
struggling in the deep night, his name, Vincent, is for posterity'
(J.J. Isaäcson, quoted in J. Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh:
Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 418).
 梵高
圣保罗医院公园
Van Gogh was embarrassed by this praise, feeling unworthy of
it, stating that Isaäcson should have waited until he had another
year's worth of works to show in order to justify such a lavish
statement. However, he was clearly aware of the fact that he was on
the path he had so long sought, and was reconciled to a lack of
fame or recognition during his own lifetime. This philosophical
perspective is evidenced by his words to Theo from this same
period:
'Do you know what I think of pretty often, what I already said
to you some time ago - that even if I did not succeed, all the same
I thought that what I have worked at will be carried on. Not
directly, but one isn't alone in believing in things that are true.
And what does it matter personally then! I feel so strongly that it
is the same with people as it is with wheat, if you are not sown in
the earth to germinate there, what does it matter? - in the end you
are ground between the millstones to become bread.
'The difference between happiness and unhappiness! Both are
necessary and useful, as well as death or disappearance... it is so
relative-and life is the same.
'Even faced with an illness that breaks me up and frightens
me, that belief is unshaken' (Van Gogh, op.cit., 1958, Vol. III,
no. 607, p. 218).
画家简介
文森特·威廉·梵·高(Vincent Willem van
Gogh,或译为“梵高”或"梵谷"，1853-1890)，荷兰后印象派画家。出生于新教牧师家庭，是后印象主义的先驱，并深深地影响了二十世纪艺术，尤其是野兽派与表现主义。他早期受荷兰画家马蒂斯·玛丽斯的影响以灰暗色系进行创作，直到他搬往巴黎与作为画商的弟弟同住，接触了当时震动了整个巴黎美术界的画家们，画风渐渐被印象派的画家影响，后来经过在野外的长期写生，色调渐渐由灰暗色系变为明亮色系。
梵高一生中共画了864张油画，1037张素描，150张水彩画，他的水彩画亦十分出众，和油画不分上下。他个人独爱肖像画，一生中画过35幅自画像，11幅向日葵，4幅覆盖在以前的练习画上，7幅在习作的背面，7幅在纸板上画的。在他去世之后，他的作品跻身于全球最着名最珍贵的艺术作品的行列。他的作品目前主要收纳在阿姆斯特丹的梵高美术馆和奥特洛的国立克罗-米勒美术馆。
作品资料
Parc de l'hôpital Saint-Paul
成交总额
GBP 9,001,250
估价
GBP 8,000,000 - GBP 12,000,000
oil on canvas
26 3/8 x 20¼ in. (66.7 x 51.5 cm.)
Painted in October 1889
拍卖 7857
Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale
伦敦|2010年6月23日
拍品 17
来源
Théo van Gogh, Holland, by 1891.
Madame J. van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam, by 1925.
V. W. van Gogh, Amsterdam, by 1927.
The Leicester Galleries, London.
Galerie Thannhauser (no.1134), Paris and Lucerne, in
1927.
Ralph M. Coe, Cleveland, Ohio, 1927-1959; sale, Sotheby's, New
York, 14 January 1959, lot 82.
Wildenstein Gallery, New York.
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner in
1963.
展览历史
Amsterdam, Municipal Museum, The Municipal Museum Exhibition,
July - August 1905, no. 207.
New York, Montross Gallery, October 1905, no. 66.
Basel, Kunsthalle, Vincent van Gogh, March - April 1924, no.
46.
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Vincent van Gogh, 3 July - 10 August 1924,
no. 57.
Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein, October - November
1924, no. 28.
Paris, Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Vincent van Gogh, Exposition
Rétrospective, January 1925, no. 36.
The Hague, Pulchri Studio, March - April 1925, no. 26.
Munich, Glaspalast, 1926, no. 2071.
Berlin, Galerie Thannhauser, 8 January - February 1927 (not in
catalogue).
Cleveland, Museum of Art, French art since 1800, 1929
(illustrated p. 168).
New York, Wildenstein & Co.,The art and life of Vincent
van Gogh, 1943, no.49 (illustrated).
Cleveland, Museum of Art, The work of Vincent van Gogh, 1943,
no. 49 (illustrated p. 90).
Cleveland, Museum of Art, Work by Vincent van Gogh, 1948, no.
23 (illustrated pl. XXIV).
Columbus, Gallery of Fine Arts, Masterpieces of Painting,
1950, no. 37.
New York, Wildenstein & Co., Van Gogh, 1955, no. 52
(illustrated p. 60).
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Pictures collected by
Yale alumni, 1956, no. 99 (illustrated).
Los Angeles, Municipal Art Gallery, Vincent van Gogh, 1957,
no. 17 (illustrated p. 31).
London, Wildenstein & Co., The French Impressionists and
some of their Contemporaries, April - May 1963, no. 71
(illustrated).
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Van Gogh, June - November
2000, no. 79.
相关文献
J.-B. de la Faille, L'oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh, catalogue
raisonné, vol. II, Paris and Bruxelles, 1928, no. 640
(illustrated).
W. Scherjon & J. de Gruyter, Vincent van Gogh's Great
Period, Amsterdam, 1937, p. 340, no. 152 (illustrated).
J.-B. de la Faille, Vincent van Gogh, Paris, 1938, p. 442, no.
642 (illustrated).
P. Lecaldano, L'opera pittorica completa di Van Gogh e i suoi
nessi grafici, vol. II, Milan, 1966, no. 727 (illustrated p.
223).
J. Hulsker, The Complete Van Gogh, Paintings, Drawings,
Sketches, 1980, p. 415, no. 1800 (illustrated, titled 'Trees in the
Garden of Asylum').
Bulletin of the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Fall 1950, p.
35 (illustrated).
I. F. Walther & R. Metzger, Vincent Van Gogh, Sämtliche
Gemälde, vol. II, Cologne, 1989, p. 559 (illustrated).
阴山工作室
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