美国作家质疑梵高死因：谁杀死了天才梵高？

Was Van Gogh shot dead by a teenager in an accident? Artist's suicide is “a myth”, says art historians.

梵高死于枪击意外？艺术历史学家认为画家自杀的说法纯属虚构。

The Vincent van Gogh story is that the poverty-stricken and unappreciated artist took his own life with a shot to the chest.

一直以来我们听到的天才画家文森特·梵高的故事都是这样结束的：贫困潦倒郁郁不得志的画家朝自己的胸脯开了一枪，结束了自己的生命。

But, more than a century on, two American writers have cast doubt on his suicide and instead claim he was shot dead by a teenager.

一个多世纪后的今天，有两位美国作家质疑梵高的自杀说法，认为他是被一位青少年枪击死亡的。

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith claim that Van Gogh was fatally wounded by a friend’s teenage brother who enjoyed teasing and provoking the mentally ill artist.

美国作家Steven Naifeh和Gregory White Smith认为梵高是被朋友家的弟弟枪击造成致命伤的。这个年轻人喜欢取笑和激怒患有精神疾病的画家。

They also outline another theory, that Van Gogh was shot by two local boys who were playing with a malfunctioning pistol.

他们也提出了另外一种理论，认为梵高也可能是因为两个当地男孩无意间的手枪走火而意外身亡的。

Naifeh and Smith, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their biography of U.S. artist Jackson Pollock, spent ten years researching their book, which will be released in Britain tomorrow.

Naifeh 和Smith因合著美国画家杰克逊·波洛克传记而荣获普林策奖。他们花了十年的时间研究他们的新书，该书将于明天（10.17）在英国出版上市。

In Van Gogh: The Life, they claim that the Dutch impressionist "knew nothing about guns" and that "no gun was ever found" at the scene or anywhere else.

在他们的新书《梵高：人生》中，他们认为这位荷兰印象派画家“对枪一无所知”，而且在现场或其他地方“也没有发现枪”。

They conclude that Van Gogh had a "history of violent outbursts" and suggest a disagreement of some kind may have been his undoing.

他们得出结论，认为梵高有过“暴力倾向的精神病史”，可能是某种意见不合造成了画家的死亡。

According to the official version of his death, Van Gogh was only 37 when he went into a field in the French town of Auvers-sur-Oise on the evening of July 27, 1890, and shot himself in the chest with a revolver.

根据官方说法，1890年7月27日的晚上，当时的梵高住在法国Auvers-sur-Oise小镇上，他走到一片麦田里用左轮手枪结束了自己的生命，当时画家年仅37岁。

But in their account, Naifeh and Smith claim that there is strong evidence against this, as Van Gogh left no suicide note and the bullet which killed him entered his body "from an unusual, oblique angle – not straight on as one would expect in a suicide".

不过从这两位美国作家的解释来看，他们有真凭实据反驳这一观点。梵高并没有留下任何自杀遗书。杀死画家的那颗子弹“是从一个很奇怪的倾斜角度射入画家体内的，而不是像自杀那样直接射入的路线。”

The writers, who were granted access to thousands of family letters and had the co-operation of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, have concluded that a row with a neighbour’s son was the real reason why he was shot, and that as he welcomed his own death he saw no reason to blame anybody else.

两位作家得到许可阅读了梵高与家人间的几千份信件，也与阿姆斯特丹的梵高博物馆进行了合作。他们总结认为与邻居儿子的争执是画家被枪击的真正原因。因为画家欣然迎接死神的光临，所以他没有怪罪任何人。