PXL_20240329_235814622

Irises
1889

Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, Zundert 1853—Auvers-sur-Oise, France 1890

Oil on canvas

A severe mental health crisis, in which he cut off his own ear, prompted Van Gogh to admit himself to the Saint-Paul Asylum at Saint-Remy in the south of France. His recuperation began with painting of the asylum garden, Irises chief among them. The close study of nature was the foundation of Van Gogh’s art, as his precise delineation of individual flowers suggests, but he also brought to that study an astonishing degree of subjective intensity. We feel this in the painting’s strong colors, thickly applied paint, and powerful decorative rhythms, all of which convey the artist's sense of nature’s surging vitality.