Bradley Collins, Van Gogh and Gauguin. (콜린즈, 반 고흐와 고갱) [고흐 관련 서적]

Collins, Bradley, Van Gogh and Gauguin, Westview

콜린즈 브래들리의 이 책은 서양 미술사에서 특히 흥미를 끄는 두 화가의 특히 흥미로운 사건, 즉 두 달 간의 짧은 동거와 그리고 잘 알려진 파국을 중심축으로 하여, 이 두 화가의 개인적 특성과 상호관련성을 정신분석학적인 측면에서 침착하고 깊이 있게 다룬 작품이다.¹ 다시 말해 작가는 인간의 유아기의 체험이 개인의 성격적 특징을 결정짓는다는 프로이트의 이론을 바탕으로 두 사람의 행동 동기를 분석하고 있다. 고흐의 유아기 체험의 중심에는 그가 태어나기 꼭 일 년 전에 태어나자마자 죽은 같은 이름의 형이다. 고흐가 이 사실을 의식적으로 알았을 리는 만무하지만, 이 사건이 고흐의 어머니 안나에게 미친 파장이 어린 고흐에게 고스란히 전달되었다고 저자는 보고 있다. 이후 고흐의 여성과의 사랑의 실패나 인간관계의 실패의 원인을 여기에서 찾는다.

Why was this romantic disappointment so catastrophic for van Gogh?² Why couldn't he shake it off as so

many young men do? A psychoanalytic explanation finds the answer, not surprisingly, in van Gogh's

childhood. A startling fact of the artist's infancy is that he was preceded by a first, stillborn Vincent, who

died exactly a year to the day before his own birth. The death of a first child deals a severe blow to any

mother, but this loss would have been particularly harsh for the thirty-three-year-old Anna, who married

late and eagerly wished for a family. The official mourning period extended beyond Vincent's birth and may have been more than a formality in this case. Vincent would have found himself with a mother consumed by her grief and unable to lavish undivided attention on him. Making matters worse, Vincent would continue to

suffer displacement in his mother's affections first by his sister, Anna, born when he was two, and then by

Theo's birth when he was four. These successive disappointments during the crucial first years of infancy

may have formed a deep, unconscious reservoir of depression. Eugénie's rejection would have tapped into

this reservoir and opened the floodgates.

That an unavailable mother lived on powerfully in van Gogh's unconscious is dramatically underscored by

the type of woman to whom he invariably attached himself. Indeed, one would be hard put to find a more

insistent case of repetition compulsion(that is, the compulsion to return to traumatic or painful situations). (4-5)

그러니까, 고흐가 사랑한 여성들은 모두 ‘슬퍼하는 어머니’의 이미지를 담고 있는 인물이며, 그 사랑이 빈번히 실패로 돌아가고 만 것은, 얻을 수 없었던 어머니로부터의 사랑의 결핍을 반복하려는 강박 때문이라고 보는 것이다.

A surviving photograph reveals her as a forbiddingly severe latter-day replacement for the once-distant

Anna. Kee Vos-Stricker, who had lost both an infant son and her husband, would eventually succeed

Eugénie in this role of unattainable love object. (5)

이러한 고흐의 심리적인 특성은 그의 다른 인간관계에서도 드러나고, 더 나아가서는 장소와 관련해서도 뚜렷한 패턴을 보여준다.

One of the most important of these [causes of their failure of living together] was a strong pattern in

Vincent's relationships with the significant men in his life. As we have seen, he would idealized them,

attempt to merge with them, and then angrily attack them. Vincent acted out this cycle with his father, with Theo, and to a lesser extent with Mauve. He had already rehearsed much of it with Gauguin in epistolary

form during waiting period for his arrival in Arles. (164)

Vincent would first generate great hope about the subject matter, practicality, and economic advantages of a new locale. He would then write Theo with manic enthusiasm about the money he will save and the

wonderful pictures he will paint. The new site will allow him to finally put down roots, buy furniture, and

make expansive arrangements with local artists and tradesmen. But soon enough he would encounter

difficulties with finances, models, or his health, and his most recent "last stand" would be abandoned for the next. (26)

고흐가 애정 결핍으로 인한 정신적 고통에 시달리고, 그 고통에는 마조히즘적인 성격이 강하다면, 고갱은 아버지가 그가 한 살 때 죽었기 때문에, 어머니의 애정을 독차지할 수 있었는데, 이로 인해 고흐와는 반대의 입장에 놓인 것으로 보인다. 하지만, 그에게 있어서 아버지의 결핍은 이후 남성성의 추구로 이어지고, 결혼도 남성적인 면이 강한 메테와 하게 된다.

His [Gauguin] willfulness, pride, and nonconformity may have flourished in the absence of a patriarchal

figure who would have suppressed such attitudes. He may also have developed a strong feminine

identification against which he struggled for the rest of his life. This would account for his need to present

himself as a hypermasculine figure who womanized, dominated others, and always stood poised for a fight. (43)

One of her [Mette-Gauguin's wife] more outstanding traits was a mannishness in dress and character.

Large, strong-willed, and independent, she somked cigars, showed up at one of Arosa's costume balls

dressed as a man, and appears, in Gauguin's bust of her, with a forbiddingly sharp profile and severely close-cropped hair. It is perhaps too easy to regard Gauguin's attraction to the masculine Mette as an

unconscious compensation for the missing Clovis [Gauguin's father] or as his need to defend against oedipal yearnings for the "soft and caressing" Aline. But Mette must have satisfied some compelling desire in him,

for they were married in less than a year despite the resistance of Gauguin's sister and Mette's mother.

They quickly began to have children--three in five years--and eventually would have five in all. (49)

이 상반된 유아기의 상흔을 지닌 두 사람이, 그것도 에고가 강하디 강한 두 사람이 동거하게 되었으니, 그 파국은 당연한 귀결일지도 모른다. 그렇지만, 왜 그 파국이 고흐가 자신의 귀를 자르는 발작이라는 극단적인 것이었는가? 그에 대한 대답을 어느 하나에 국한시킬 수는 없으리라.

It is also perfectly possible that Vincent would have had his breakdown if Gauguin had not come at all. His

isolation, manic exertions, excessive drinking (particularly of absinthe), disappointment with not selling,

anticipation of Christmas, and his apprehensions about Theo's engagement may well have been enough to

trigger a seizure. The engagement, which occurred in late December, would have been especially troubling

as Vincent must have feared the diversion of Theo's emotional and financial support toward his new wife. (176)

두 사람의 동거가 비극적인 파국으로 끝나긴 했지만, 이 동거는 예술적인 측면에서는 서로에게 도움이 되는 그런 것이었다. 콜린즈는 두 사람의 예술적 관계를 똑바로 정립하기 위해서는 다음과 같은 시각이 우선 되어야 한다고 본다.

Perhaps the most challenging task is to see past the polarized roles promoted by myth and by the artists

themselves. Gauguin was not simply the arrogant and insensitive Master relentlessly imposing painting from the imagination on his troubled disciple. Nor was Vincent simply the submissive student struggling with an

alien technique while suffering from increasingly pronounced mental disorders. (191)

콜린즈의 정신분석학에 입각한 인간과, 그리고 작품의 분석은 그 해석의 타당성에 동의하든 하지 않든 간에 흥미로운 것임에는 틀림없다. 쉽게 말하자면, 세계를 보는 방식 중의 하나이다. 그렇지만, 고갱에 대해서는 나로서는 잘 모르기 때문에 정확히 이야기하기가 불가능하지만, 고흐의 경우, 그의 분석은 상당한 설득력을 지닌다고 본다. 고흐가 자기 내부의 모순과 갈등으로 고통 받은 것은, 현재로서는 정신분석학적인 설명 이외에 다른 설명이 설득력을 지니고 다가오기는 힘들다. (그보다 더 근원적으로 그의 유전적인 특징을 살펴볼 수도 있을 터인데, 이 방법을 어떻게 적용할 수 있을지에는 또 다른 연구가 있어야 할 것이다.)

<발췌>

*What accounts for the endless appeal of the van Gogh myth? It has at least two deep and powerful sources. At the most primitive level, it provides a satisfying and nearly universal revenge fantasy disguised as the

story of heroic sacrifice to art. Anyone who has ever felt isolated and unappreciated can identify with van

Gogh and hope not only for a spectacular redemption but also to put critics and doubting relatives to shame. At the same time, the myth offers an alluringly simplistic conception of great art as the product, not of

particular historical circumstances and the artist's painstaking calculations, but of the naive and spontaneous outpourings of mad, holy fool. (1)

*repetition compulsion(that is, the compulsion to return to traumatic or painful situations) (4-5)

*Vincent would first generate great hope about the subject matter, practicality, and economic advantages of a new locale. He would then write Theo with manic enthusiasm about the money he will save and the

wonderful pictures he will paint. The new site will allow him to finally put down roots, buy furniture, and

make expansive arrangements with local artists and tradesmen. But soon enough he would encounter

difficulties with finances, models, or his health, and his most recent "last stand" would be abandoned for the next. (26)

*Living more than a hundred years after the artistic revolution that van Gogh and others initiated, it is hard

to appreciate the boldness and independence of the ideas that informed The Potato Eaters. We must strain

to imagine an art world dominated by academic standards and regulations. Vincent, moreover, needed

special resolve as he was largely ignorant of the very school, Impressionism, that might have legitimated

many of his assumptions. (33)

*His [Gauguin] willfulness, pride, and nonconformity may have flourished in the absence of a patriarchal

figure who would have suppressed such attitudes. He may also have developed a strong feminine

identification against which he struggled for the rest of his life. This would account for his need to present

himself as a hypermasculine figure who womanized, dominated others, and always stood poised for a fight. (43)

*One of her [Mette-Gauguin's wife] more outstanding traits was a mannishness in dress and character.

Large, strong-willed, and independent, she somked cigars, showed up at one of Arosa's costume balls

dressed as a man, and appears, in Gauguin's bust of her, with a forbiddingly sharp profile and severely close-cropped hair. It is perhaps too easy to regard Gauguin's attraction to the masculine Mette as an

unconscious compensation for the missing Clovis [Gauguin's father] or as his need to defend against oedipal yearnings for the "soft and caressing" Aline. But Mette must have satisfied some compelling desire in him,

for they were married in less than a year despite the resistance of Gauguin's sister and Mette's mother.

They quickly began to have children--three in five years--and eventually would have five in all. (49)

*So the scenario that Somerset Maugham devised in his Gauguin-inspires Moon and Sixpence rests, not

surprisingly, more on fiction than fact. Unlike Maugham's Strickland, Gauguin did not abandon his wife,

children, and the stock exchange with explosive suddenness. Nor, after leaving his family penniless, did he

profess complete indifference to their fate. For at least the next decade, Gauguin assumed that he would

eventually enjoy enough success to reassemble his family. Yet Strickland does accurately resemble his

model in his mysterious and overriding compulsion to paint. Maugham's narrator can find no better

explanation for this compulsion than to make the admittedly "romantic" comparison between Strickland's

"deep rooted instinct of creation" and a religious conversion. (52-3)

*Gauguin and Vincent shared several traits when they first turned to art. They were both in their

midtwenties, had spent their late adolescence in peripatetic and mostly unconventional activities, and had

not received any academic training. Yet the differences in those years must have far outweighed the

similarities. Vincent had taken yet another leap into the abyss after his sensationally failed attempt to

become an Evangelist in the Borinage. He had to justify his unpromising and unremunerative choice to

himself, to his family, and to a brother who knew only too well the difficulties of starting an artistic career at twenty-five. Vincent, moreover, felt the pressure of academic tradition more keenly. He simulated a

traditional course of training by relying on Bargue's exercise books and worked side by side with friends,

such as Van Rappard, who valued correct technique. Finally, Vincent could find support his rebellion against an arid and inexpressive academic style not among actual colleagues but only in an imaginary avant-garde

formed by Millet and Delacroix. None of these problems afflicted Gauguin. He bypassed the struggle with

academic art altogether and simply began in a Barbizon-derived style and moved toward Impressionism

under Pissaro's tutelage. Gauguin also avoided the existential angst that beset Vincent. Neither his identity

nor his income depended, at this point, on his success as an artist. (53)

*Just as Vincent's lack of facility propelled him toward a more original style, so Gauguin's inability to

achieve a sumptuous Impressionist touch may have pushed him further in his own direction. (54)

*It seems as if he were two persons: one, marvelously gifted, tender and refined, the other, egoistic and

hard-hearted. They present themselves in turns, so that one hears him talk first in one way, then in the

other, and always with arguments on both sides. It is a pity that he is his own enemy, for he makes life hard not only for others but also for himself. (71, 테오가 빈센트의 성격을 묘사한 편지)

*Although Gauguin clearly felt himself superior to Vincent both as a man and an artist, Vincent's status as

Theo's brother obscures the exact nature of nearly every other emotion that Gauguin might have harbored. Would Gauguin have had anything to do with Vincent if not for his ties to one of the largest art-dealing firms in Europe? It is too harsh to say that Gauguin had no sympathy for Vincent or respect for his painting. But

one can not ignore the element of calculation that entered into Gauguin's stance toward the van Gogh

brothers. (75)

*The oedipal nature of their relationship made Vincent's attitude towards Gauguin as mentor especially

charged and ambivalent. on the one hand, he wanted to submit to his teachings. (93)

*Gauguin's motivations for going to Arles were not simply mercenary. Apart from his genuine affections for Vincent and his curiosity about Arles, he would have wanted to remain in the good grace of a dealer as

important to him as Theo. He also entertained the notion that Arles would amount only to a relatively short

interlude during which he would recover his health and save enough to make another trip to Martinique. (96)

*Gauguin and Vincent brought fundamentally different expectations to the collaboration in Arles. For

Gauguin it offered a temporary solution to his need for financial support and lodging during the winter

months. Instead of wishing to become the "abbot" of an artists' colony in the Midi, he had his eyes set on a

more far-flung, tropical outpost for painting and on success in Paris. (97)

*He [Vincent] had rejected the zealotry and fanaticism of his earlier religious mania but retained his

profound admiration for Jesus. In June he had written to Bernard that Christ "lived serenely, as a greater

artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh." Buddhists

dedicated themselves to a Christlike figure but, at the same time, dispensed with the authoritarian structure of conventional Christianity that Vincent found so distasteful. Instead of placing a God above humanity and

creation, Buddhism came closer Vincent's own "naturalized religion," that is, his transfer of divinity from God to nature. (105)

*So Vincent, by transforming himself into a Buddhist monk, could affirm both his own idiosyncratic Japonism and his post-Christian religiosity. (106)

*One of the most important of these [causes of their failure of living together] was a strong pattern in

Vincent's relationships with the significant men in his life. As we have seen, he would idealized them,

attempt to merge with them, and then angrily attack them. Vincent acted out this cycle with his father, with Theo, and to a lesser extent with Mauve. He had already rehearsed much of it with Gauguin in epistolary form during waiting period for his arrival in Arles. (164)

*It is also perfectly possible that Vincent would have had his breakdown if Gauguin had not come at all. His

isolation, manic exertions, excessive drinking (particularly of absinthe), disappointment with not selling,

anticipation of Christmas, and his apprehensions about Theo's engagement may well have been enough to

trigger a seizure. The engagement, which occurred in late December, would have been especially troubling

as Vincent must have feared the diversion of Theo's emotional and financial support toward his new wife. (176)

*Where is the hurled absinthe? Where, more importantly, is the razor Vincent held menacingly in his hand as he approached Gauguin? The absence of these crucial details from the account closet in time to the tragedy suggests that Gauguin invented them fifteen years later when he wrote Avant et apres. (178)

*Perhaps the most challenging task is to see past the polarized roles promoted by myth and by the artists

themselves. Gauguin was not simply the arrogant and insensitive Master relentlessly imposing painting from the imagination on his troubled disciple. Nor was Vincent simply the submissive student struggling with an

alien technique while suffering from increasingly pronounced mental disorders. (191)

 

1. 이 두 사람을 다룬 문학 작품으로 유명한 것은, 우선 고흐의 것으로 어빙 스톤(Irving Stone)이 쓴 [빈센트, 빈센트, 빈센트 반 고흐](Lust for Life)가 있고, 고갱을 소재로 한 윌리엄 서머셋 몸(William Somerset Maugham)의 [달과 육 펜스](The Moon and Six Pence)를 들 수 있다. 스톤의 작품과 달리, 몸의 작품은 고갱의 전기적 사실을 기반으로 하면서도 작가의 상상력이 많이 가미된, 그래서 몸의 개인적인 예술가 상이 많이 드러나는, 전기라기보다는 소설적 성격이 강한 그런 것이다. 그리고, 어빙 스톤의 작품을 토대로 한 동명의 영화 또한 훌륭하다. [본문으로]
2. 유제니(Eugénie)와의 첫사랑의 실패를 가리킨다. [본문으로]