Work Record
Class [controlled]: • paintings
*Work Type [link]: • painting
*Title: Irises  Title Type: repository
*Creator Display:  Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
*Role [link]: painter  [link]: Gogh, Vincent van
*Creation Date: 1889  [controlled]: • Earliest: 1889   • Latest: 1889
*Subject [links]: • botany  • irises  • regeneration  • soil  • nature
Style [link]: • Impressionist  • Post-Impressionist
Culture [link]: French
*Current Location [link]: J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, California, USA)  • ID: 90.PA.20
Creation Location [link]: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France)
*Measurements: 71 x 93 cm (28 x 36 5/8 inches)
[controlled]:  • Value: 71 Unit: cm Type: height  |  • Value: 93 Unit: cm Type: width
*Materials and Techniques:  oil on canvas, applied with brush and palette knife
Material [links]:  • oil paint  • canvas  Technique/Implement [link]: • brush  • palette knife
Inscriptions: signed lower right: Vincent
Description: This work was painted when the artist was recuperating from a severe attack of mental illness; it depicts the garden at the asylum at Saint-Rémy. The cropped composition, divided into broad areas of vivid color with monumental irises overflowing the borders of the picture, was probably influenced by the decorative patterning of Japanese woodblock prints. There are no known drawings for this painting; Van Gogh himself considered it a study. His brother Theo recognized its quality and submitted it to the Salon des Indépendants in September 1889, writing to Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. It is a beautiful study full of air and life."
Description Source [link]: J. Paul Getty Museum. Handbook of the Collections. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991. Page: 129.
• J. Paul Getty Museum online. www.getty.edu  Page: accessed 22 October 2006

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