Van Gogh Never Visited Japan, but He Saw It Everywhere
梵高從未去過日本，卻做著一個日本夢

AMSTERDAM—In the soft, clear light of Provence, France, Vincent van Gogh saw the crisp skies of Japanese woodcut prints. The almond blossoms, gnarled trees and irises that dotted the French landscape reminded him of nature scenes painted in Kyoto. And in the locals at Arles cafes, he saw resonances with the geishas and Kabuki actors of a country he had never visited.
阿姆斯特丹——在法國普羅旺斯柔和清晰的陽光下，文森特·梵高(Vincent van Gogh)看到了日本木刻版畫中的清澈天空。法國風光里的杏花、鳶尾花與盤根錯節(jié)的樹木讓他聯(lián)想起那些在京都繪制的自然風景。在阿爾咖啡館的當?shù)厝松砩希吹饺毡舅嚰伺c歌舞伎的影子，而那是一個他從未去過的國家。

"My dear brother, you know, I feel I'm in Japan," van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, on March 16, 1888, not long after he had settled in Arles. "I'd like you to spend some time here, you'd feel it," he wrote. "After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel color differently."
“親愛的弟弟，你知道，我覺得自己好像在日本，”1888年3月16日，梵高在定居阿爾不久后寫信給弟弟提奧(Theo)。“我希望你能在這里度過一段時間，你會感覺到的，”他寫道。“一段時間后，你的視野會發(fā)生變化，你會更多地以日本人的方式去觀看事物，以不同的方式去感知色彩。”
For at least a year, van Gogh, who was Dutch, lived in Provence in a kind of Japanese dream. It was not a delusion, but rather an imaginative projection of an idealized vision of Japan onto the French landscape. The painter had been bitten by the bug of Japonisme, a mania for Japanese aesthetics that swept Europe in the 19th century, and which also afflicted painters such as Claude Monet, Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas.
在至少一年的時間里，荷蘭人梵高在普羅旺斯做著他的日本夢。這不是妄想，而是把他心目中理想化的日本景觀投射到法國風景當中去，非常有想象力。19世紀，對日本美學的狂熱席卷歐洲，被稱為“日本主義”，梵高也受到了沖擊，這股風潮還感染了克勞德·莫奈(Claude Monet)，愛德華·馬奈(Édouard Manet )和埃德加·德加(Edgar Degas)等畫家。
Even though van Gogh's art was not widely reproduced and accessible in Japan until decades later, the Japanese had also van Gogh visions, van Gogh dreams. Just as van Gogh imagined Japan as a country, they imagined him. It was a kind of two-way imaginary vision.
盡管梵高的藝術直到幾十年后才開始在日本被廣泛復制和觀賞，但日本人也同樣擁有梵高的視野與梵高的夢想。正如梵高想象日本這個國家，日本人也在想象梵高。這是一種雙向的想象視野。