Irises: Van Gogh's Masterpiece

Irises, a renowned masterpiece by the prolific Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, bears witness to the tumultuous yet remarkably creative period during his stay at the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in the year preceding his tragic death in 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh, a luminary of the esteemed Post-Impressionist movement, left an enduring mark with celebrated paintings and drawings worldwide, showcasing both artistic brilliance and the profound challenges posed by recurring mental illness, culminating in the infamous act of self-mutilation where he severed a portion of his left ear during a harrowing episode.

Irises stands as a poignant testament to van Gogh's indomitable spirit, conceived before the asylum became his refuge. Unlike the emotional intensity characterizing his later works, Irises serves as a precursor marked by a sense of tranquility. Van Gogh himself described the painting as "the lightning conductor for my illness," providing insight into his view of art as a therapeutic outlet capable of deflecting the storms within his troubled mind. The canvas encapsulates the delicate dance between sanity and chaos, its serene beauty belying the tumultuous mental landscape of its creator.

The influence of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints on Irises reveals a layer of complexity in van Gogh's artistic vision. This influence, prevalent in his contemporaneous works and those of his artistic peers, is evident in the strong outlines, unconventional perspectives, including intimate close-ups, and a departure from traditional light-based modeling towards a flattening of local color. Van Gogh's ability to synthesize diverse influences into a distinctive visual language adds richness to the narrative surrounding Irises.

Irises gained historical significance in 1987 when it became the most expensive painting ever sold, fetching a staggering AUS $54,000,000 in a transaction with Alan Bond. However, financial constraints played a fateful role, as Bond found himself unable to fulfill the payment obligation. This turn of events led to the painting's resale, underscoring not only its artistic value but also the complex interplay between creativity, commerce, and the inexorable march of time.

In essence, Irises encapsulates the convergence of artistic brilliance, psychological turmoil, and the market forces governing priceless creations, solidifying its status as a timeless masterpiece in the annals of art history.
Irises: Van Gogh's Masterpiece

The Italian Woman 1887 by Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter, generally considered to be the greatest after Rembrandt van Rijn, and one of the greatest of the post-Impressionists.

While living in Paris, Van Gogh frequented the Cafe du Tambourin on the boulevard du Clichg, near his apartment, and sometimes exchanged still-life paintings for the odd meal. The proprietress of the cafe, Agostina Segatori, is thought to be the striking woman in this painting of The Italian.

'Italian Woman' was created in 1887 by Vincent van Gogh in Neo-Impressionism style. This woman model Agostina Segatori (1843-1910), was a former model with whom Van Gogh seems to have had a brief love affair a few months before this portrait was painted.

Born in 1843, Agostina Segatori posed for a Manet in 1860 and for Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in 1873.
The Italian Woman 1887 by Van Gogh

St Remy De Provence

First established by an indigenous Celtic-Liguarian people wjo worshipped the god Glan, the village Glanum was adopted and gentrified by the Greeks of Marseille in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.

In the Middle Ages, Saint-Rémy flourished and became endowed with ramparts and a rich city with many beautiful mansions at the time of the Renaissance there was the birthplace Nostradamus.

Perhaps the best known of St. Remy’s visitor was the ill-fated Vincent van Gogh. Shipped unceremoniously out of Arles at the height of his madness, he had himself committed to the asylum St.Paul de Mausolee and wandered through the ruins of Glanum during the last year of his life.

Vincent was cut off from his country, family, and fellow artists. His isolation was enhanced by his state of health, psychologically fragile and erratic. Yet for all these taxing disadvantages, Van Gogh was determined to fulfill himself as an artist, the road that he had taken in 1880.

He was treated by Dr Théophile Peyron. In between attacks, Vincent made numerous paintings and drawings, first in the asylum and its gardens and later beyond, among the olive gardens and cypresses, in the Alpilles mountains and in the village.
St Remy De Provence

The road menders 1889

Vincent van Gogh in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

Born in 1853 Vincent Willem van Gogh was the first surviving child of Anna van Gogh-Carbentus and the Reverend Theodorus van Gogh, a preacher in the Dutch Reformed Church.

Van Gogh arrived in Saint-Remy in May 1889. There he voluntarily committed himself to an asylum, originally built as a monastery in the 12th an 13th centuries. He continued to suffer from depression and paranoia

Initially, he depicted the interior environment, recreating for himself his room, a vestibule, the vaulted corridors of the old building. He also painted the asylum grounds, the park and the walled field.

Despite further episodes of debilitating mental illness, during his episodes of lucidity van Gogh continue to paint, producing some of masterpiece for which he is most famous, including Irises and Starry Night. He produced 150 canvases in total during asylum there.
Vincent van Gogh in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

Starry Night by Van Gogh

Van Gogh in Paris

In February 1886, Vincent van Gogh was so poor that he could not pay his rent in Antwerp, Belgium, so he hotfooted it to Paris to move in with his brother.

He arrived unexpectedly in Paris in March 1886 and left just as abruptly. But he lived those two years like a ball of kinetic energy, interacting with the nineteenth century most dynamic artistic and intellectual environment.

van Gogh

Van Gogh stayed in the capital of the nineteenth century for two years, from 1886 to 1888. He lived with his brother Theo. Theo introduces van Gogh to the works of Clyde Monet and the Impressionists.

In Paris, his ideas about painting were challenged, and he learned new techniques and styles from many of the artists he met. In Paris he was introduced and became friends with Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, two painters who profoundly challenged his use of the palette.

Settling into an apartment with his brother on rue Lepic van Gogh explored his surroundings, paintings areas in close proximity to where he lived, including Asnieres, a nearby town along the bank’s of the Seine.

There he drew inspiration from the bridges, often depicting several different views, as well as the restaurants de la Sirene.

Paris 1886

He attended the salons of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, along with cancan dancers, musicians, actors and writers, and other members of the Montmartre demimonde. And he was particularly inspired by the work of Adolphe Monticelli, a painter from Provence who was known for his thickly painted and colorful still life of flowers.

During in Paris, van Goh used canvases of rather varied density, most commonly about 12 x 13 threads per square centimeter. Toward the end of his life, however, the majority of the canvases he employed has a weave that was slightly irregular and asymmetrical with 12 x 18 threads per square centimeter.
Van Gogh in Paris

The Potato Eaters, 1885

Vincent van Gogh painted the picture in April-May 1885, at Nuenen, where van Gogh’s parents had lived since 1883.  Vincent lived there for two years 1884 and 1885. At that time he had already done 250 drawings and 190 paintings.

He finished The Potato Eaters in September-October 1885.

He had been working on the composition for several months. In December1884, he began painting portraits of peasants in the area with the idea and producing a picture of group of them in an indoor setting.

Vincent wanted to paint peasants in their own surroundings. He sought the motif for this study in the heart of the people, and he wanted to draw that motif as it really was.

The Potato Eaters depicts a simple, domestic scene. In a humble, wooden house, five people are seated around the table, helping themselves to a plate of boiled potato.

He sent The Potato Eaters to his brother Theo into Pairs. For Vincent it was a success independently from the reception of the work. He had painted it exactly as he had wanted to paint it.
The Potato Eaters, 1885

Fisherman on the beach by Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh paintings 0f 1881-1882

List of paintings produced in 1881
Still Life with Cabbage and Clogs
Crouching Boy with Sickle
Old Man at the Fireside
Woman Sewing (1881-1882)

List of paintings produced in 1882
Woman with White Shawl
Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather
Dunes
Dunes with Figures
Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather
Fisherman on the Beach
Fisherman's Wife on the Beach
Women Mending Nets in the Dunes
Girl in White in the Woods
Girl in the Woods
Man Stooping with Stick or Spade
A Girl in the Street, Two Coaches in the Background
Edge of a Wood
Cluster of Old Houses with the New Church in The Hague
The Iron Mill in The Hague
Meadows near Rijswijk
Sorrow
Back Garden of Sien's Mother's House, the Hague
Rooftops, View from the Atelier
Bleaching Ground at Scheveningen
Pollard Willow
Church Pew with Worshippers
The State Lottery
The Bookseller Blok
Sien Nursing Baby
The Potato Market
Two Women in the Woods
Vincent van Gogh paintings 0f 1881-1882

Van Gogh at Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy

Van Gogh leaves Arles, where he had been living since 20 February 1888, by train, accompanied by the Reverend Frederick Salles, pastor of the Reformed Protestant Church in Arles, for the Asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Remy-de-Provence.

Van Gogh spent most of the last year of his life, from 1889 to 1890, painting frantically in St. Remy.  While voluntary committed to an asylum there in Saint-Paul-de-Mausole he produced 150 canvases.

He continued to paint the surrounding countryside at various times of day from within these confines, working through window of his room, or in the garden of the hospital.

Although he sold just one painting during his lifetime, van Gogh produced 800 oil paintings and 700 drawings.
Van Gogh at Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy  

History of the Night Café by van Gogh

Van Gogh moved to Paris in 1886, where he began to collect and copy Japanese print. In 1888, he relocated to Arles in southern France.

Van Gogh had become involved in an artistic competition with two of his most prolific correspondent, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin who were both working in Pont-Aven at the time.

Bernard had sent him a series of drawings of brothel scenes, and in September 1888 these gave van Gogh the idea for a contemporary design in modern idiom, this was The Night Café.

The painting was executed in early September 1888. Van Gogh rented a room in this café before he went to live in the Yellow House.

A night café was an establishment, typically in the South of France, that stayed open all night. Van Gogh stayed up three nights to paint this picture, sleeping only during the day.
History of the Night Café by van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent William van Gogh was born in 1853 at Groot Zundert, a little village in the Dutch province of Brabant, not far from the border between Holland and Belgium. Deeply religious, he studied for the priesthood but never passed the entrance exam for theology school.

The van Gogh family had, for centuries, given men of note to Holland especially as clergymen and in commerce; in the nineteenth century several members of the family were art dealer.

At 16 he became an assistant (1869-76) with an international firm of art dealers in their shops in The Hague, London and Paris.

In May 1876, he becomes a teacher in a school at Ramsgate. In April 1881, he set off for Brussels to study art, where his family encouraged him to take painting lessons.

He settled in The Hague where he lived with his model Christien, a prostitute. She appears in the drawing Sorrow (1882) and Sien Posing (1883).

Van Gogh began studying painting with Anton Mauve in January 1882. Van Gogh’s burst of creativity between 1885 and 1890 was his most productive interval. Especially after moving to Paris in 1886, van Gogh produced one classic painting after another at a manic pace fueled by both absinthe and his growing mental instability – producing more than 200 painting in the two years after his move.

Van Gogh has been acknowledged as a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism and has had an enormous influence on 20th century art.

In 1890 he went to live at Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, under the supervision of a physician, Dr Paul Gachet, himself an amateur painter and engraver, whom van Gogh painted.

On July 27, 1890, van Gogh shot himself at the scene of his last painting, the foreboding Cornfields with Flight of Birds, and died two days later.
Vincent van Gogh

History of Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889

History of Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889
This was painted in September 1889, when Van Gogh was in the St-Rémy mental asylum, near Arles, where he was a patient from May 1889 until May 1890. It is one of three almost identical versions of the composition.

Vincent William Van Gogh was a great Dutch post impressionist artist who created many paintings and drawings including some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive artworks.

One such most expensive artwork is A Wheatfield with Cypresses. When Van Gogh began his art career in 1880, he started at the elementary level by copying the "Cours de dessin," edited by Charles Bargue.

Like most of his paintings Van Gogh created 'A Wheatfield with Cypresses' in a series. The entire series depicted the artist's feelings and observations from his bedroom window, when he was spending life in a mental asylum at St. Remy in May 1889.
History of Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889

Irises by Vincent van Gogh

History of Painting

Irises is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, painted while he was at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France in the last year before his death in 1890.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 in Zundert – July 29, 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise) was a Dutch draughtsman and painter, classified as a Post-Impressionist.

His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive pieces. He suffered from recurrent bouts of mental illness — about which there are many competing theories — and during one such episode, famously cut off a part of his left ear.

The Irises was painted before his first attack at the asylum. There is a lack of the high tension which is seen in his later works. He called the painting "the lightning conductor for my illness", because he felt that he could keep himself from going insane by continuing to paint.


The painting was influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, like many of his works and those by other artists of the time. The similarities occur with strong outlines, unusual angles, including close-up views and also flattish local color (not modeled according to the fall of light).

In 1987, it became the most expensive painting ever sold when it was sold for AUS $54,000,000 to Alan Bond, but he did not have enough money to pay for it and it had to be re-sold.

It is now owned by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

History of Painting