Van Gogh Never Visited Japan, but He Saw It Everywhere
梵高从未去过日本，却做着一个日本梦

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——在法国普罗旺斯柔和清晰的阳光下，文森特·梵高(Vincent van Gogh)看到了日本木刻版画中的清澈天空。法国风光里的杏花、鸢尾花与盘根错节的树木让他联想起那些在京都绘制的自然风景。在阿尔咖啡馆的当地人身上，他看到日本艺妓与歌舞伎的影子，而那是一个他从未去过的国家。

"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."
“亲爱的弟弟，你知道，我觉得自己好像在日本，”1888年3月16日，梵高在定居阿尔不久后写信给弟弟提奥(Theo)。“我希望你能在这里度过一段时间，你会感觉到的，”他写道。“一段时间后，你的视野会发生变化，你会更多地以日本人的方式去观看事物，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.
在至少一年的时间里，荷兰人梵高在普罗旺斯做着他的日本梦。这不是妄想，而是把他心目中理想化的日本景观投射到法国风景当中去，非常有想象力。19世纪，对日本美学的狂热席卷欧洲，被称为“日本主义”，梵高也受到了冲击，这股风潮还感染了克劳德·莫奈(Claude Monet)，爱德华·马奈(Édouard Manet )和埃德加·德加(Edgar Degas)等画家。
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.
尽管梵高的艺术直到几十年后才开始在日本被广泛复制和观赏，但日本人也同样拥有梵高的视野与梵高的梦想。正如梵高想象日本这个国家，日本人也在想象梵高。这是一种双向的想象视野。