On the wall in Room 45 at National Gallery in London hangs the most famous painting in Britain.伦敦国家画廊45号展示厅中挂着全英国最有名的画作。
If you’ve never seen the original, you’ve almost certainly see a reproduction.就算阁下没有看见过原作，一定也看过它的复制画。

It’s pretty good as far as bowls of flowers go, so maybe it’s just the top bowls of flowers painting.以花朵静物画来说，它很不错，所以它也许是一副最好的花朵静物画。

Fifteen flowers in a vase,15朵插在花瓶里的花，
but much more than a pretty still life. 但它不只是一幅单纯的静物画。
Their splashy exterior disguises a richer and stranger story.快意泼洒的色彩下面有个更丰富、更奇特的故事。

They’re not just flowers in a vase. They’re something almost cosmic.它们不只是插在花瓶里的花，其中隐含着更深刻的意义。
For the artist who painted them, the sunflowers had the significance of a Holy icon,对这幅画的作者来说，向日葵具有神圣的象征意义，
and became the central to his ambitions for a whole new artistic movements.并成为他推动全新艺术运动野心的关键。

They are somewhat tortured, bursting with meaning,它们看来有点扭曲，仿佛饱含着某种寓意，
and yet one doesn’t know exactly what the meaning is.但我们又说不出所以然来。

This’s a masterpiece born of a tragic misunderstanding between two men.这幅旷世巨作因两位男子间的悲剧误会而诞生。
It lies at the heart of one of the most tempestuous alliances in art between Vincent Van Gogh and his mentor Paul Gauguin.这是艺术史上最狂暴的一段关系的中心，也就是文森特梵高和他的导师保罗高更。

One can see in the “Sunflowers” the symbol of their long lived productive and fraughtrelationship,我们可以说“向日葵”象征着他们这段漫长、多产又不安的关系，
and the aims, ambitions and ideals that they hoped to accomplish for painting.也象征着他们想要达成的绘画目标、野心及理想。

It’s a holy relic, a rule breaker,这是一幅神圣的遗物，打破一切成规，
a modern money spinner,在现代更成为赚钱的利器，
and so loaded with the colors of Van Gogh’s own personality that it’s virtually a self-portrait.充分展现梵高的个性，几乎可以说是他的自画像。
Among still lives, it’s the least restful of all.也是一副最不安、躁动的静物画。

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MASTERPIECE -- The Sunflowers
“旷世杰作的秘密”印象派与后印象派-梵高的“向日葵”

Christopher Riopelle (National Gallery, London):克里斯托弗·瑞波尔(伦敦国家画廊19世纪作品馆馆长)：
I think that wall is probably the most visited wall in the Gallery.我想那间展示室是国家画廊里最热门的景点，
I think people make a bee-line to see the Van Gogh, but particularly to see that picture.游客会直接杀去看梵高的画，但最主要还是要看这幅画。
There is always a crowed in front of the picture.那幅画前总是聚集了一群人。
Always people lingering much longer, it seems to me, than they spend in front of other pictures.我觉得人们看这幅画的时间比看别的画时更长。
All of a sudden, you are confronted with a picture that is simply more aggressive than any other flower pictures we might have seen.突然间我们看到一幅比其他花朵静物画更具侵略性的画作。

The more you look at the “Sunflowers”, the stranger the painting becomes.看“向日葵”看得越久，越觉得它奇怪。
It appears to have an almost supernatural glow,它似乎散发出一股超自然的光芒，
shadow-less, yet mysterious,没有一丝阴影，但仍然神秘，
both absorbing and radiating light.几乎同时吸收及散发出光线。
But how do these other worldly qualities emerge from the banal subject of a bowl of flowers?这不过是一瓶平凡无奇的花，为什么会显得如此超凡脱俗？
And the flowers themselves in one way they’re strong, stylized and unreal,再说说花朵本身：它们风格强烈又超现实，
but they’re also victims of the natural cycle of life.但同时也是自然生命周期的被害者。
Each bloom appears less than perfect, asymmetric and caught in its own particular stage of decay.画中的花没有一朵是完美的，全都凌乱而死气沉沉。
Yet the symmetry of the whole is powerful.但画作的整体却流露出令人震撼的对称感。
Close up, it seem more sculptural than painted.这幅作品近看会觉得像一尊雕像。
The pigment’s so thick in places that it’s three-dimensional.某些地方颜料厚重到呈现立体状态。

Elsewhere it’s so thin that you can see the canvas beneath.有些地方又稀薄，露出下方的画布。
Yet we never think of the work as unfinished.但从来没有人觉得这是一幅未完成的作品。
Even the signature is mysterious.连画家的签名都非常神秘。
Precisely because it’s un-missable,主要是因为它大剌剌地横越画布，
not hidden away in the corner,而非藏在角落中。
but such a bold feature of the painting如此鲜明的署名已成为画作的特色之一，
that it might be emblazoned on the pottery itself.简直就像花瓶瓶身上的装饰。
Why would the artist want his name to appear so forcefully in the canvas?画家为何把名字签在这么抢眼的地方？
Not that there’s one just canvas.这幅画并不是绝无仅有，
Such was the artist infatuation with this subject that he came back to paint it 11 times.作者对这个主题非常着迷，所以画了11副类似的画作。
So the National Gallery painting was not the first attempt at the“ Sunflowers”.收藏在国家画廊的并不是第一幅“向日葵”。
In a series of eleven, it’s the eighth, and most important.而是11幅中的第8幅，也是最重要的一幅。
Seven studies lead up to it, and the last three are copies.作者在之前画了7幅习作，之后的3幅为这一幅临摹画。
The eleven versions have never been exhibited together,这11幅“向日葵”从未同时展出过，
but when seen in any sort of grouping, they began to share some of their secrets.但若放在一起研究，他们便看是吐露它们的秘密。

John Leighton (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam):约翰·雷登(阿姆斯特丹梵高博物馆主任)：
The Sunflowers could express a kind of cycle of life of him.对他来说，向日葵是生命周期的呈现。
He paints the sunflowers as blubs; he paints them as flowers just coming into bloom;他笔下的向日葵有的只是花苞，有的即将绽放，
he paints the blooms just as they are past their best, and then wilting away and dying.有的刚刚怒放过，有的则开始凋零。

The Sunflowers chart the artist’s rise from apprentice to master.“向日葵”记录了这名画家从学徒到大师的崛起之路。
He used flower-heads to train himself to study form, texture and above all, color.他藉着描绘花头来研究形状、质感和色彩。
But none of this would have happened, if Van Gogh hadn’t moved to Paris.但要是梵高没有搬到巴黎，这一切都不会发生。

“I must insist on spending a year in Paris devoted to drawing…“我要花一年在巴黎画画，
and you shall see how productive I shall become.”到时你就会看到我丰沛的创造力。”

In the spring of 1886,1886年春天，
Vincent Van Gogh, a 32 year old preacher’s son from Holland moved to Paris,32岁的牧师之子梵高从荷兰搬到巴黎，
in the hope of making a career as an artist.希望能成为一名职业画家。
His brother Theo Van Gogh was an influential art dealer.他的弟弟提奥梵高是个颇为有影响力的画商。
And Vincent moved into his apartment at 54 Rue Lepic in Montmartre.文森特搬进弟弟位于蒙马特区勒比克街54号的家。
Paris, home of the Impressionists, 当时的巴黎是印象派画家的大本营，
was the centre of the art world.也是世界艺术的中心。
Van Gogh devoted the next year to studying and drawing anything he could get his hands on.梵高在接下来的一年里埋首作画。
By the end of the summer, 夏天快要结束的时候，
the gardens of Montmartre were as usual full of end-of-season sunflowers.蒙马特的花园中照惯例满是即将凋谢的向日葵。
Van Gogh picked some up from the gutter, and began to paint his first four Sunflower studies.梵高采了些向日葵回家，画了最早的四幅向日葵习作。

John Leighton (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam):约翰·雷登(阿姆斯特丹梵高博物馆主任)：
He was attracted to the form, to the shape, to the spectacular dying seeds,向日葵的形状、色彩及种子让他着迷，
which he sets in a couple of his paintings against this extremely vibrant blue background.他在两幅习作中更是以鲜明的蓝色为背景进行描绘。
In his Parisian Sunflower studies,在完成于巴黎的向日葵习作中，
Van Gogh was undoubtedly influenced by the Impressionism that swept the city’s art world.梵高显然深受当时袭卷巴黎艺坛的印象派画风影响。

Christopher Riopelle (National Gallery, London):克里斯托弗·瑞波尔(伦敦国家画廊19世纪作品馆馆长)：
Paris was an extraordinarily important moment for Van Gogh.在巴黎期间对梵高来说是分重要的一段时期，
And he was looking around him with a kind of ferocity;他疯狂地四处搜寻，
he was absorbing everything he could find from Monet,贪婪地吸收一切有关艺术的事物，
Gauguin, Pissarro…如莫奈、高更、毕沙罗等等。
He was just a kind of vacuum cleaner of influences for several moths there.那几个月他像吸尘器般地吸收别人的精华。

But Van Gogh resisted total immersion in that world,但梵高拒绝全然沉浸在那个世界里，

for fear of becoming either dogmatic or merely decorative.因为担心他的作品流于教条或沦为单纯的装饰艺术。
In direct criticism of Monet, he said,他批评莫奈时说过，
he would rather paint people’s eyes than cathedrals.他宁愿描绘人们的双眼，也不想画大教堂。

His subject matter may have been modestly chosen, but his approach was masterly.他的主题也许平凡无奇，但呈现手法却让人惊艳。
He uses an extraordinary range of different techniques.他使用了很多不同的技巧。
Whether it’s picking out the seeds with tiny little pointillist touches,比如说向日葵的种子用的是精细的点彩画法，
whether it’s the thick sculpture slabs of paint that he uses for petals,呈现花瓣时用的则是厚重的颜料，
brittle stems are oaked with yet other kinds of brushstrokes.干硬的花梗用笔法又不一样。
All set against these richly textured backgrounds. 背景鲜艳华美，
It’s extraordinarily successful.令人啧啧称奇。

It was the virtuosity of these paintings applied to such unusual subject of matter that earned Van Gogh the most fateful friendship of his life.这批以纯熟技巧呈现特殊主题的画作为梵高带来了这辈子最重要的一段友谊。
A friendship which would first inspire his masterpiece,这段友谊先是让他创作了他的旷世巨作，
and then precipitate his ruin.然后又导致他的陨落。