法国，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.人头马，普罗旺斯，1889年5月8日，梵高承认自己雷米 - 普罗旺斯位于圣保罗德Mausole到僻静的庇护，他的精神抑郁发黑。 He was just 36 years old.他当时只有36岁。

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.经过地狱般的冬天，他会带动他的邻居分心和接近自杀，画家被解除只限于医院的理由，这老照片表明避难所很少改变，从我所看到的，站在正门外在一个长期的，绿树成荫的巷道。

Looking south through the barred windows of his cramped second-storey room gave him a fine view of the hospital garden.通过他局促的第二层房间的铁窗南给他的医院花园的优美景色。 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.在监狱的院子里任何寨，长方形的空间创建一个封闭的世界，让梵高越来越多地集中他的注意力，对自然，对规模较小。 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.在他流苏风信子 （1890）或的巨型孔雀蛾 （1889年）绘制的翡翠翅膀提请小细节是现在大理由来参观“梵高：近距离，”在加拿大的新节目的国家画廊，在渥太华开幕5月25日超过3个月的运行。

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?没有字的“重磅炸弹”不可避免地与梵高，在拍卖会上支付的价格-就像100美元多万元支付于1987年，他的鸢尾花 “（1889）（美国） -人潮排队展览吗？ Nevertheless, “van Gogh: Up Close” is mostly about about intimacy.然而，“梵高：近距离”主要是关于有关亲密。

I'm having my own close-up moment looking over the very garden through the bars of the artist's bedroom.我有我自己的特写的时刻，通过艺术家的卧室里的酒吧非常花园。 The garden itself, responding to the arrival of spring's sultry heat, is thick with twisted shapes and intriguing intricacies.花园本身，响应春天的燠热的到来，是厚厚的扭曲的形状和有趣的错综复杂。

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.一些从未在大西洋的这一边，直到最近出现在费城艺术博物馆 - 显示 - 可描述为景观内的景观，艺术家，他看到整个充电45幅画许多。

“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. “突出一个具体的细节特写或在一个较大的主题感兴趣，梵高尝试的领域和重点深入，收盘在一簇草或一花独放，或提供一个领域转移的角度或一个角落花园，说：“国家美术馆的馆长安娜贝丽Kienle。

The catalogue for “van Gogh: Up Close” includes an essay by critic Ulrich Pohlmann on the artist's relationship with photography. “梵高：零距离接触”的目录，包括乌尔里希Pohlmann评论家摄影艺术家的关系的文章。 To my mind, however, van Gogh's cinema-like vision plays a bigger role.然而，在我看来，梵高的影院般的视觉发挥更大的作用。 Nature in motion was as much his subject as any other.在运动的性质是尽可能任何其他他的主题。

Everywhere I go across Provence, this movement is inescapable: the incessant winds of the mistral slamming shutters, fluttering grasses animating entire fields.我到处都去整个普罗旺斯，这个运动是不可避免的：米斯特拉尔砰百叶窗不断的风，飘飘草动画整个领域。

It can be breath-taking and it can drive you mad.它可以是惊人的，它可以推动你疯了。 van Gogh arrived at the Saint-Paul “maison de santé” feeling his great southern experiment a failure.梵高抵达圣保罗“MAISON DE健康”的感觉他的伟大的南部实验失败。

“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. “整个新艺术的未来是在MIDI”，他曾自信地告诉保罗高更，希望两个可能在他的小黄家在附近的阿尔勒肩，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 - 每一个位为朗声梵高气质 - 有没有实力和耐心来处理他的主机的极端情绪波动，他猥琐的烹饪或他的暴力行为。 After threatening Gauguin with an open razor one winter night, van Gogh hacked off a chunk of his right ear.威胁开放剃须刀一个冬夜，高更，梵高砍死了一大块他的右耳。 He gave the “object,” as he called it, to Rachel, his favourite prostitute.他给“对象”，他呼吁，雷切尔，他最喜欢的妓女。 Keep it “carefully,” he told her.保持“小心”，他告诉她。

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.圣保罗医院的工作人员，听过同样对梵高的天赋和愤怒为他安排有第二个狭小的空间工作，作为一个积极的迹象，这是他看到的。 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，他患有某种形式的疯狂 - 一种疾病，“像任何其他”，梵高的理由 - 抵消的可能性提供了一个画家，与南部creviced山他们的意见，由医院的理由。

Today, St. Rémy could be described as Madison Avenue with a French accent, far fewer clothes and much better restaurants.今天，雷米街可以形容麦迪逊大道带有法国口音，衣服少得多，好得多的餐馆。 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.她呼吁后，她已故的第二任丈夫，斯特凡诺·卡西拉奇，这里也有一些喋喋不休镇最有名的居民，摩纳哥公主卡洛琳，或“夫人CASI”的下落。 Otherwise, people-watching, shopping and still more shopping are the main occupations.否则，人们观赏，购物和购物更主要的职业。

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. - 梵高当然酒店 - 从我的酒店仅几步之遥任何工装商店，地产代理商，提供每间别墅两百万欧元的“抢断”，大大高估了艺术商店和高档家具店的数量。

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.这使得圣雷米回家的人有足够的现金购买梵高，镇的主要景点，即使是在梵高的极端痛苦的记忆。 Indeed, within days out of the hospital here, he headed north, his southern dreams in tatters.事实上，这里的医院出天之内，他北上，他南部的梦想支离破碎。 He was found in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris on July 27, 1890, after he'd shot himself.他被发现，1890年7月27日，在巴黎附近的瓦兹河畔奥维尔后，他开枪自杀。 He died two days later.他两天后死亡。

Following painters in their travels through Provence is a mini-industry in the book and tourist trades.继通过普罗旺斯的画家在他们的旅行是在迷你书和旅游行业的产业。 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，跟踪梵高要求额外的浓度和耐力，只是为了配合画家的紧张的能源和原料需要他的视觉刺激，他发现南部的光刺入，风，太阳暴晒的颜色。

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.在我的画梵高圣雷米区，罗讷河到地中海的空瓶通过平坦的荒地和工业风力涡轮机的迷宫，我有我的远房指南馆长Kienle通过她的短信，我的黑莓网站搜索。

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).我走过前面桑特，新婚夫妇-DE-LA-MER，梵高的访问于1888年短暂，希望推动自己实现了更加激烈和过顶的风格，一个要在桑特查看发现建议-新婚夫妇-DE-LA-MER（1888年）。

Saintes-Maries is now a somewhat tacky tourist spot.桑特，新婚夫妇现在是一个有点俗气的旅游景点。 Other areas van Gogh visited have vanished due to urbanization, Kienle warns me, and are somewhat hard “to pin down in terms of location.”梵高参观其他地区由于城市化已经消失，Kienle警告我，是有点硬“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.在阿尔勒的中心，你可以步行下了火车他走到下桥，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.但看到在距离城市的任何企图，梵高在展示的前景的鸢尾花 “（1888） 查看阿尔勒更可能导致你的箱子商店和厂家直销。

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.高耸的平面过滤树木斜光为沿圣雷米左右的道路旅客行可以发现在一些油画作品“零距离接触”的优惠，包括两个版本的大梧桐树（雷米在圣道Menders）中 ，Kienle说。 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.暗绿色的柏树画家的作品中出现的树木线平行的道路，我参加了一天，我开车西部塔拉斯孔，小城市圣雷米西部，感觉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).并没有什么太大的变化-渥太华演出最直接的连接，与梵高的法国南部曝光-是大自然本身的细节，像树干的抽象条纹，他注意到在树干草 （1890）。

The painter understood well nature's wildness and voraciousness.画家深知性质的野性和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.再回到医院，有一天早上，我3个老年妇女病人采取由护士后花园的周长，观看，开始讨论它的外观有些粗糙。

Within moments, les madames are in a heated exchange about gardening, giving me a chance to read Kienle's text further.在瞬间，莱太太是一本关于园艺的热交换，给我一个机会，以进一步阅读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，她让我想起了日本艺术家的密切共融的工作，研究草的单刃，以便更好地理解作为一个整体的性质与自然的想法，“开发。 He painted several close-up views of the grasses or flowers on the asylum grounds, many of which will be here.他画的草类或庇护的理由花几个特写意见，其中许多将在这里。 One of these paintings is Trees and Dandelions (done) in April-May, 1890.”这些画作之一，是树和蒲公英 （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.仍然站在花园里，我希望我的黑莓从那里，他们是：梵高的树。

“In the paintings, these things look much better,” I hear one of the women say. “在绘画中，这些东西看起来好多了，”我听到一个妇女说。

“But doesn't everything?” says another. “但不一切吗？”一位妈妈说。