Irises
Irises was painted in the garden of the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum before van Gogh had his first mental breakdown there. The painting vibrates with intense observation and the joy of painting from life.
Irises (1889) was painted by Vincent van Gogh during his first week at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Unlike The Starry Night, which was painted from memory and imagination, Irises was observed directly from the asylum's garden.
The painting has a Japanese woodblock quality -- a flat, patterned design with close-up intensity. The irises themselves are a vivid blue-purple (originally deeper before the pigment faded) against a backdrop of marigold yellow-orange. Van Gogh described the painting as 'the lightning rod for my illness' -- a way to ground himself through observation and work.
The painting was exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1889 and received enthusiastic reviews. It sold at auction in 1987 for $53.9 million, then the highest price ever paid for a work of art.