美國作家質疑梵高死因：誰殺死了天才梵高？

Was Van Gogh shot dead by a teenager in an accident? Artist's suicide is “a myth”, says art historians.
梵高死於槍擊意外？藝術歷史學家認爲畫家自殺的說法純屬虛構。

The Vincent van Gogh story is that the poverty-stricken and unappreciated artist took his own life with a shot to the chest.
一直以來我們聽到的天才畫家文森特·梵高的故事都是這樣結束的：貧困潦倒鬱郁不得志的畫家朝自己的胸脯開了一槍，結束了自己的生命。

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.
一個多世紀後的今天，有兩位美國作家質疑梵高的自殺說法，認爲他是被一位青少年槍擊死亡的。

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.
美國作家Steven Naifeh和Gregory White Smith認爲梵高是被朋友家的弟弟槍擊造成致命傷的。這個年輕人喜歡取笑和激怒患有精神疾病的畫家。

They also outline another theory, that Van Gogh was shot by two local boys who were playing with a malfunctioning pistol.
他們也提出了另外一種理論，認爲梵高也可能是因爲兩個當地男孩無意間的手槍走火而意外身亡的。

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因合著美國畫家傑克遜·波洛克傳記而榮獲普林策獎。他們花了十年的時間研究他們的新書，該書將於明天（10.17）在英國出版上市。

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.
在他們的新書《梵高：人生》中，他們認爲這位荷蘭印象派畫家“對槍一無所知”，而且在現場或其他地方“也沒有發現槍”。

They conclude that Van Gogh had a "history of violent outbursts" and suggest a disagreement of some kind may have been his undoing.
他們得出結論，認爲梵高有過“暴力傾向的精神病史”，可能是某種意見不合造成了畫家的死亡。

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.
根據官方說法，1890年7月27日的晚上，當時的梵高住在法國Auvers-sur-Oise小鎮上，他走到一片麥田裏用左輪手槍結束了自己的生命，當時畫家年僅37歲。

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".
不過從這兩位美國作家的解釋來看，他們有真憑實據反駁這一觀點。梵高並沒有留下任何自殺遺書。殺死畫家的那顆子彈“是從一個很奇怪的傾斜角度射入畫家體內的，而不是像自殺那樣直接射入的路線。”

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.
兩位作家得到許可閱讀了梵高與家人間的幾千份信件，也與阿姆斯特丹的梵高博物館進行了合作。他們總結認爲與鄰居兒子的爭執是畫家被槍擊的真正原因。因爲畫家欣然迎接死神的光臨，所以他沒有怪罪任何人。