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  3. The story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life is more heartbreaking, and heart-liftin

The story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life is more heartbreaking, and heart-liftin

游客2023-12-14  9
问题     The story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life is more heartbreaking, and heart-lifting, than the romantic myth that has enshrouded him for decades. It is told, in his own words and works, in the six-volume Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters, his 819 surviving letters (and the 83 addressed to him) form the core. The first letter was written when Vincent, aged 19, was a trainee at The Hague Branch of Gospel & CIA, a firm of international art dealers. Like most of the letters, it was sent to his brother, Theo, then 15. The two remained close. Theo became an art dealer and Vincent’s main source of financial and emotional support.
    Van Gogh is irascible,  engaging,  intelligent, touchy, high-minded, well read, rebellious and pigheaded. When he started dressing like a tramp he claimed it was, in part, to advertise his refusal to join polite, i. e. , hypocritical society. (Equally, it may have been because polite society was refusing to accept him. ) He was often miserable, occasionally love-struck, almost always fiercely committed to something or other and sometimes mad.
    Art and literature were his constant companions. He wrote often about what he was reading and seeing. His concern was never a book’s place in the canon or a painting’s in art history. He judged a work on what it communicated, and how. From Antwerp he wrote that the religious paintings of Rubens are "theatrical. . . But what he can do is paint a queen, a statesman, well analyzed, just as they are. " He wrote beautifully about landscapes and peasants. In time, he gave a vivid, perhaps unequalled, account of an artist making art.
    He set off at 16, a seemingly conventional young man, to make his way as a dealer first in The Hague and then, via Paris, in London. There, a prickly instability, characteristic of his childhood, re-emerged, perhaps brought on by a rebuff from his landlady’s daughter. He lost the job he had had for seven years. Other failures followed, as a preacher and a teacher.
    His religious fanaticism grew. Indeed, the letters offer a rare look at obsession from the inside. His pursuit of a young widow was so unrelenting he would be called a stalker today. But to him, her repetition of "No, nay, never!" was "a piece of ice that I press to my heart to thaw. "
    When he was 26 his fixation became art. By then he was a penniless, eccentric loner. This coincides with a year-long break in the correspondence. He had fallen out with Theo following a "discussion" about his future. When the letters resume, Vincent refers to himself as a prisoner, a caged bird. "I know I could be quite a different man!" he writes. "There’s something within me, so what is it?" Two months later he bent himself to the study of drawing and painting as others would bend to the plough. It was as if he had to labor, and metaphorically sweat, before his genius could, or was allowed to, emerge. Five years later, in the spring of 1885, came The Potato Eaters. Movingly, triumphantly, Van Gogh had broken through.
    After two years in Paris, living with Theo (only nine letters~ no images), Vincent moved to Arles in 1888. Color now floods the pages. This was the beginning of the legendary period of prodigious, radiant creativity. Yes, he cut off his ear. He also painted nearly 200 pictures, among them The Night Care and The Yellow House.
    In 1889, after a series of crack-ups (in reaction to Theo’s marriage or perhaps just too much absinthe), he spent a year in the asylum at Saint-Remy-de-Province. The work continued to pour out (about 150 paintings). Sunflowers and Irises but also Starry Night, in which viewer and artist are pulled up over the rooftops, and tumble round and round across the dark sky.
    The very last letter reproduced, addressed to Theo but unfinished, was written on July 23rd, 1890. He was staying in Auvers-sur-Oise, not far from Paris where Theo lived with his wife and child. The note was found in Vincent’s pocket after he shot himself. He died, aged 37,on July 27th.
    Fifteen years were devoted to this publication. The Dutch, English and French editions are the joint project of the Huygens Institute and Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. Letters and illustrations fill five books; the sixth has commentaries, maps and indexes.
    This is not the first attempt to publish the complete letters but it is the best. There were editions in 1914; an expanded version appeared in English in 1958; 20 newly discovered letters were added for the 1990 Dutch centenary edition. Now the letters have been retranslated, comprehensively annotated and there are 20 new items.
    But what really sets this edition apart from, and above, all others are the illustrations. Sketches are embedded in many of Van Gogh’s letters; the drawings and "scratches" he sometimes tucked into envelopes before posting are reproduced. So are thumbnail illustrations of every work the artist mentions (whether by himself or by others) plus larger reproductions of paintings based on these letter sketches. [br] Van Gogh attached much importance to______in terms of art and literature.
选项 A、the position of a book in the canon
B、the place of a painting in art history
C、the content and the way a work communicated
D、how theatrical and well analyzed a painting is
答案 C
解析 细节题。根据题干中的art and literature回文定位到第三段。原文“His concern was never…Hejudged a book on what it communicated，and how”，这一肯定一否定的两句话存在语义上的转折：“他从不关心……他从传达的内容和表达方式上评判一本书”，由此可见他注重的更多的是书的内容和表达方式，选项[C]“作品表达的内容和方式”中the content and the way是对原文“what it communicated，and how”的正确改写，故为答案。选项[A]“一本书在正典中的位置”，选项[B]“一幅画在艺术史上的位置”，是对原文的改写，但意思上均与原文相冲突：“一本书在正典中的公认地位或一幅画在艺术史上的位置都不会引起他的关注”，故都排除；选项[D]“一幅画的风格夸张和老成世故程度”，而原文中theatrical和well analyzed出现在转折连词but的前后，故即使单词意思把握不好，也能由此判断出这两个词不可能由and去连接，故排除。
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