法國，ST。 RÉMY-DE-PROVENÇE—On May 8, 1889, Vincent van Gogh admitted himself into the secluded Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in St. Rémy-de-Provence, his spirits blackened by depression.人頭馬，普羅旺斯，1889年5月8日，梵高承認自己雷米 - 普羅旺斯位於聖保羅德Mausole到僻靜的庇護，他的精神抑鬱發黑。 He was just 36 years old.他當時只有36歲。

After a hellish winter where he'd driven his neighbours to distraction and was close to suicide, the painter was relieved to be confined to the sanctuary of the hospital grounds, which old photos suggest have little changed from what I see standing outside the main gate at the end of a long, tree-lined roadway.經過地獄般的冬天，他會帶動他的鄰居分心和接近自殺，畫家被解除只限於醫院的理由，這老照片表明避難所很少改變，從我所看到的，站在正門外在一個長期的，綠樹成蔭的巷道。

Looking south through the barred windows of his cramped second-storey room gave him a fine view of the hospital garden.通過他侷促的第二層房間的鐵窗南給他的醫院花園的優美景色。 Walled in as any prison yard, the rectangular space created a confined world that allowed van Gogh to increasingly focus his attention on nature on a smaller scale.在監獄的院子裡任何寨，長方形的空間創建一個封閉的世界，讓梵高越來越多地集中他的注意力，對自然，對規模較小。 The small details he drew in Tassel Hyacinth (1890) or the painted emerald wings of Giant Peacock Moth (1889) are now big reasons to visit “Vincent van Gogh: Up Close,” the National Gallery of Canada's new show, which opened in Ottawa May 25 for a run of more than three months.在他流蘇風信子 （1890）或的巨型孔雀蛾 （1889年）繪製的翡翠翅膀提請小細節是現在大理由來參觀“梵高：近距離，”在加拿大的新節目的國家畫廊，在渥太華開幕5月25日超過3個月的運行。

Small?小？ Isn't the word “blockbuster” inevitably connected with van Gogh, from prices paid at auction — like the $100-plus million (US) paid in 1987 for his Irises (1889) — to crowds queuing up for exhibitions?沒有字的“重磅炸彈”不可避免地與梵高，在拍賣會上支付的價格-就像100美元多萬元支付於1987年，他的鳶尾花 “（1889）（美國） -人潮排隊展覽嗎？ Nevertheless, “van Gogh: Up Close” is mostly about about intimacy.然而，“梵高：近距離”主要是關於有關親密。

I'm having my own close-up moment looking over the very garden through the bars of the artist's bedroom.我有我自己的特寫的時刻，通過藝術家的臥室里的酒吧非常花園。 The garden itself, responding to the arrival of spring's sultry heat, is thick with twisted shapes and intriguing intricacies.花園本身，響應春天的燠熱的到來，是厚厚的扭曲的形狀和有趣的錯綜複雜。

Many of the 45 paintings — some never shown on this side of the Atlantic until their recent appearance at the Philadelphia Museum of Art — can be described as landscape within the bigger landscape, where an artist was recharging his entire way of seeing.一些從未在大西洋的這一邊，直到最近出現在費城藝術博物館 - 顯示 - 可描述為景觀內的景觀，藝術家，他看到整個充電45幅畫許多。

“Interested in highlighting a specific detail or a close-up within a larger motif, van Gogh experimented with depth of field and focus, closing in on a tuft of grass or a single flower or providing shifting perspective of a field or the corner of a garden,” says National Gallery curator Annabelle Kienle. “突出一個具體的細節特寫或在一個較大的主題感興趣，梵高嘗試的領域和重點深入，收盤在一簇草或一花獨放，或提供一個領域轉移的角度或一個角落花園，說：“國家美術館的館長安娜貝麗Kienle。

The catalogue for “van Gogh: Up Close” includes an essay by critic Ulrich Pohlmann on the artist's relationship with photography. “梵高：零距離接觸”的目錄，包括烏爾里希Pohlmann評論家攝影藝術家的關係的文章。 To my mind, however, van Gogh's cinema-like vision plays a bigger role.然而，在我看來，梵高的影院般的視覺發揮更大的作用。 Nature in motion was as much his subject as any other.在運動的性質是儘可能任何其他他的主題。

Everywhere I go across Provence, this movement is inescapable: the incessant winds of the mistral slamming shutters, fluttering grasses animating entire fields.我到處都去整個普羅旺斯，這個運動是不可避免的：米斯特拉爾砰百葉窗不斷的風，飄飄草動畫整個領域。

It can be breath-taking and it can drive you mad.它可以是驚人的，它可以推動你瘋了。 van Gogh arrived at the Saint-Paul “maison de santé” feeling his great southern experiment a failure.梵高抵達聖保羅“MAISON DE健康”的感覺他的偉大的南部實驗失敗。

“The whole future of new art is in the Midi,” he'd once confidently told Paul Gauguin, hoping the two might work shoulder-to-shoulder in his little yellow house in nearby Arles. “整個新藝術的未來是在MIDI”，他曾自信地告訴保羅高更，希望兩個可能在他的小黃家在附近的阿爾勒肩，以肩。 But Gauguin — every bit as broke and temperamental as van Gogh — hadn't the strength or patience to handle his host's extreme mood swings, his wretched cooking or his violence.但高更 - 每一個位為朗聲梵高氣質 - 有沒有實力和耐心來處理他的主機的極端情緒波動，他猥瑣的烹飪或他的暴力行為。 After threatening Gauguin with an open razor one winter night, van Gogh hacked off a chunk of his right ear.威脅開放剃鬚刀一個冬夜，高更，梵高砍死了一大塊他的右耳。 He gave the “object,” as he called it, to Rachel, his favourite prostitute.他給“對象”，他呼籲，雷切爾，他最喜歡的妓女。 Keep it “carefully,” he told her.保持“小心”，他告訴她。

The Saint-Paul hospital staff, having heard equally about van Gogh's talent and rage, arranged for him to have a second small space to work in, which he saw as a positive sign.聖保羅醫院的工作人員，聽過同樣對梵高的天賦和憤怒為他安排有第二個狹小的空間工作，作為一個積極的跡象，這是他看到的。 The possibility he was suffering madness of some sort — a disease, “like any other,” van Gogh reasoned — was counterbalanced by the possibilities offered a painter by the hospital grounds, with their views of creviced mountains to the south.的可能性，他患有某種形式的瘋狂 - 一種疾病，“像任何其他”，梵高的理由 - 抵消的可能性提供了一個畫家，與南部creviced山他們的意見，由醫院的理由。

Today, St. Rémy could be described as Madison Avenue with a French accent, far fewer clothes and much better restaurants.今天，雷米街可以形容麥迪遜大道帶有法國口音，衣服少得多，好得多的餐館。 There's some chatter about the whereabouts of the town's most famous resident, Princess Caroline of Monaco, or “Madame Casi” as she's called, after her late second husband, Stefano Casiraghi.她呼籲後，她已故的第二任丈夫，斯特凡諾·卡西拉奇，這裡也有一些喋喋不休鎮最有名的居民，摩納哥公主卡洛琳，或“夫人CASI”的下落。 Otherwise, people-watching, shopping and still more shopping are the main occupations.否則，人們觀賞，購物和購物更主要的職業。

A short walk from my hotel — Hotel van Gogh of course — are any number of frock shops, real estate agents offering “steals” at two million euros per villa, vastly overpriced art shops and high-end furnishing stores. - 梵高當然酒店 - 從我的酒店僅幾步之遙任何工裝商店，地產代理商，提供每間別墅兩百萬歐元的“搶斷”，大大高估了藝術商店和高檔家具店的數量。

This makes St. Rémy home to the people with enough cash to buy a van Gogh, even if the town's main attraction is in its memory of van Gogh's extreme misery.這使得聖雷米回家的人有足夠的現金購買梵高，鎮的主要景點，即使是在梵高的極端痛苦的記憶。 Indeed, within days out of the hospital here, he headed north, his southern dreams in tatters.事實上，這裡的醫院出天之內，他北上，他南部的夢想支離破碎。 He was found in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris on July 27, 1890, after he'd shot himself.他被發現，1890年7月27日，在巴黎附近的瓦茲河畔奧維爾後，他開槍自殺。 He died two days later.他兩天后死亡。

Following painters in their travels through Provence is a mini-industry in the book and tourist trades.繼通過普羅旺斯的畫家在他們的旅行是在迷你書和旅遊行業的產業。 Yet tracking van Gogh demands extra concentration and endurance merely to match the painter's nervous energy and his raw need for the visual stimulation he found with the south's piercing light and wind, and sun-blasted colour.然而，跟蹤梵高要求額外的濃度和耐力，只是為了配合畫家的緊張的能源和原料需要他的視覺刺激，他發現南部的光刺入，風，太陽暴曬的顏色。

In my search for sites painted by van Gogh in the St. Rémy area, where the Rhone River empties into the Mediterranean through a maze of flat wastelands and industrial wind turbines, I have curator Kienle as my distant guide via her text messaging on my BlackBerry.在我的畫梵高聖雷米區，羅訥河到地中海的空瓶通過平坦的荒地和工業風力渦輪機的迷宮，我有我的遠房指南館長Kienle通過她的短信，我的黑莓網站搜索。

I'd travelled earlier to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, visited by van Gogh briefly in 1888, wanting to push himself to achieve a more intense and over-the-top style, a suggestion to be found in View of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (1888).我走過前面桑特，新婚夫婦-DE-LA-MER，梵高的訪問於1888年短暫，希望推動自己實現了更加激烈和過頂的風格，一個要在桑特查看發現建議-新婚夫婦-DE-LA-MER（1888年）。

Saintes-Maries is now a somewhat tacky tourist spot.桑特，新婚夫婦現在是一個有點俗氣的旅遊景點。 Other areas van Gogh visited have vanished due to urbanization, Kienle warns me, and are somewhat hard “to pin down in terms of location.”梵高參觀其他地區由於城市化已經消失，Kienle警告我，是有點硬“的固定位置。”

In the centre of Arles, you can walk under the train bridge he walked under or sit in the same squares.在阿爾勒的中心，你可以步行下了火車他走到下橋，或坐，在相同的正方形。 But any attempt to see the city at a distance as van Gogh does in the show's View of Arles with Irises in the Foreground (1888) is more likely to lead you to box stores and factory outlets.但看到在距離城市的任何企圖，梵高在展示的前景的鳶尾花 “（1888） 查看阿爾勒更可能導致你的箱子商店和廠家直銷。

The rows of towering plane trees filtering the slanting light for travellers along the roads around St. Rémy can be found in some paintings “Up Close” offers, including two versions of The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at St. Rémy) , Kienle says.高聳的平面過濾樹木斜光為沿聖雷米左右的道路旅客行可以發現在一些油畫作品“零距離接觸”的優惠，包括兩個版本的大梧桐樹（雷米在聖道Menders）中 ，Kienle說。 Lines of dark green cypress trees appearing in the painter's work run parallel to the road I take the day I drive west to Tarascon, the small city west of St. Rémy that feels as if it's part of Spain.暗綠色的柏樹畫家的作品中出現的樹木線平行的道路，我參加了一天，我開車西部塔拉斯孔，小城市聖雷米西部，感覺好像是西班牙的一部分。

What hasn't changed much — and where the Ottawa show connects most directly with van Gogh's southern French exposure — is in the details of nature itself, like the abstract striations in a tree trunk he noticed in Tree Trunks in the Grass (1890).並沒有什麼太大的變化-渥太華演出最直接的連接，與梵高的法國南部曝光-是大自然本身的細節，像樹幹的抽象條紋，他注意到在樹乾草 （1890）。

The painter understood well nature's wildness and voraciousness.畫家深知性質的野性和voraciousness的。

Back at the hospital again one morning, I watch as three elderly women patients, taken by a nurse to the perimeter of the back garden, begin discussing the its somewhat rough appearance.再回到醫院，有一天早上，我3個老年婦女病人採取由護士後花園的周長，觀看，開始討論它的外觀有些粗糙。

Within moments, les madames are in a heated exchange about gardening, giving me a chance to read Kienle's text further.在瞬間，萊太太是一本關於園藝的熱交換，給我一個機會，以進一步閱讀Kienle的文本。 van Gogh, she reminds me, “developed the idea that Japanese artists work in close communion with nature, studying a single blade of grass in order to better comprehend nature as a whole.梵高，她讓我想起了日本藝術家的密切共融的工作，研究草的單刃，以便更好地理解作為一個整體的性質與自然的想法，“開發。 He painted several close-up views of the grasses or flowers on the asylum grounds, many of which will be here.他畫的草類或庇護的理由花幾個特寫意見，其中許多將在這裡。 One of these paintings is Trees and Dandelions (done) in April-May, 1890.”這些畫作之一，是樹和蒲公英 （已完成），1890年4月至5月。“

Still standing in the garden, I look up from my Blackberry and there they are: van Gogh's trees.仍然站在花園裡，我希望我的黑莓從那裡，他們是：梵高的樹。

“In the paintings, these things look much better,” I hear one of the women say. “在繪畫中，這些東西看起來好多了，”我聽到一個婦女說。

“But doesn't everything?” says another. “但不一切嗎？”一位媽媽說。