Martin Bailey, Van Gogh in England. (영국에서의 반 고흐) [고흐 관련 서적] Gogh

*Martin Bailey, Van Gogh in England, Barbican

<소개>

“Van Gogh in England-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”라는 동명의 고흐 전시회의 팸플릿이기도 한 이 책은, 고흐가 화가의 길로 들어서기 전 영국에서의 생활과, 그 생활이 고흐에게 미친 영향을 간략하지만 정확하게 보여주고 있다(연대기에서 고흐의 첫사랑이자, 그에게 지울 수 없는 상처를 안겨 준 유지니 로이어(Eugenie Loyer)의 사진을 찾아볼 수 있다).

화상으로서의 생활(1873--1876년 4월, 파리에 머문 시절 포함)과, 선생 및 일종의 전도사로서의 생활(1876년 6월--12월) 동안 그가 영국의 화가와 작가들로부터 받은 영향력이 상세하게 묘사되고 있다.

Boughton, Tissot and Millais were very much in the mainstream of Victorian art, evidence of Van Gogh's

highly conventional taste. By contrast he was late to develop a passion for the Social Realists, who caused

such a scandal in the 1870s. Among these artists were Luke Fildes, Frank Holl and Hubert Herkomer. (39)

It is during this year of career change and Methodist practice that Van Gogh refers to Pilgrim's Progress

explicitly as a favoured book, one he is 'exceedingly fond of'. (100)

이 책을 통해 우리는 영국 화가들에게 받은 영향이 나중에 그가 화가로서 활동을 할 때 중요한 모티브로 등장하고, 번연의 [천로역정]이나, 조지 엘리엇의 작품 등 영국 작가들 또한 그의 사상과 세계관을 형성하는데 지대한 영향력을 행사했음을 알게 된다(물론 이러한 정황은 그의 편지에도 드러나지만, 이 책은 그러한 영향의 연관 관계를 구체적으로 보여주고 있다).

저자 베일리와, 또 [천로역정]과 고흐의 관계를 분석한 실버만 Debora Silverman은 고흐 자신이 편지에서 밝힌 대로(I always feel I am a traveller, going somewhere and to some destination. Vol III, 2) 그를 순례자, 혹은 여행자로 보고 있는데, 이러한 고흐의 정신적 사상적 형성에 영국에서의 생활이 미친 영향이 지대했음을 지적하고 있다.

[발췌]

*Van Gogh always regarded his life as a journey. Initially he saw it in religious terms, as a 'pilgrim'. After he rejected Christianity he turned to art, struggling to develop his potential. Van Gogh was also a traveller,

always on the move. When he came to London he was leaving his youth behind and stepping out into the

world as a man. (9)

*The bustle and pace of London could hardly have been in greater contrast to the sedate way of life Van

Gogh had been accustomed to in The Hague. London's population had already reached four million and its

sprawling suburbs were fast engulfing the outlying villages. (16)

*Van Gogh's early drawings provide a fascinating insight into his period in England. These sketches,

although executed in a conventional style, reveal much about his initial signs of Van Gogh's later genius.

Many of them are of motifs which came to dominate his later works. (21)

*Boughton, Tissot and Millais were very much in the mainstream of Victorian art, evidence of Van Gogh's

highly conventional taste. By contrast he was late to develop a passion for the Social Realists, who caused

such a scandal in the 1870s. Among these artists were Luke Fildes, Frank Holl and Hubert Herkomer.

Although Van Gogh only names these painters in his later letters, their pictures were to have a profound

influence on his own work in the early 1880s. In particular, their subject matter was to encourage Van Gogh in his attempts to portray 'low life' in The Hague. (39)

*I always feel I am a traveller, going somewhere and to some destination. (1888, Vol III 2) (68)

*Van Gogh's view of life as a journey, a theme he developed in England and believed in for the rest of his

days, is reflected in a poem which he had copied out for Theo from Isleworth in 1876. (68)

*Deborah Silverman, Pilgrim's Progress and Vincent van Gogh's Métier

*Pilgrim's Progress had a special correspondence to Van Gogh's personal predicament of 1875-76 and

contributed in significant ways to his self-definition and visual assumptions. (100)

*It is during this year of career change and Methodist practice that Van Gogh refers to Pilgrim's Progress

explicitly as a favoured book, one he is 'exceedingly fond of'. (100)

*The themes of Pilgrim's Progress converge in the sermon Van Gogh delivered in English in the Methodist

church at Richmond in October, 1876. (102)

*Van Gogh's Potato Eaters is not an allegory, like Bunyan's, but neither is it revelatory functions as 'a

serious thing that teaches something', 'that rouses serious thoughts'. (112)