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In 1889 van Gogh was living at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and there wasn’t much going on.
Well, I can imagine there was a LOT going on, just nothing that would’ve been fun to paint. Empty hospital rooms got boring pretty fast, so within the first week Van Gogh started painting stuff from the asylum garden. One of the many colorful flowers that are found in southern France are irises, so he made multiple paintings of them. There are no known drawings for this one, so people think these Irises were mainly a color study. His brother Theo thought they were pretty awesome though, so he submitted the painting for the annual exhibition of Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1889.
Vincent painted Irises just before his big relapse in 1890. Funny, because this painting in particular he called "the lightning conductor for my illness". He felt that painting would keep him from going cuckoo. [Spoiler alert: it didn't.]
In 1990 the Getty museum acquired Irises for a buttload of money, but they won't tell you how much. Mr Bond (Alan not James) was the previous owner, and had tried to sell the painting privately before offering it to the Getty. At one point he offered it for roughly $65 million. What a bargain, right? He himself bought the painting for $53.9 million in 1987, making it the most expensive painting ever sold for about 2.5 years. He sold the painting trying to pay off his massive debt. George Golder, Curator of paintings at the Getty in 1990, wasn’t really looking for a van Gogh though. He just “needed more star pictures” for the collection. The Getty lucked out as this remains one of the most popular works in their collection.
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Irises (painting)
Irises is one of several paintings of irises by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, and one of a series of paintings he made at the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in the last year before his death in 1890.
Van Gogh started painting Irises within a month of entering the asylum, in May 1889, working from nature in the hospital garden. There is a lack of the high tension which is seen in his later works. He called 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 probably 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). The painting is full of softness and lightness. Irises is full of life without tragedy.
He considered this painting a study, which is probably why there are no known drawings for it, although Theo, Van Gogh's brother, thought better of it and quickly submitted it to the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in September 1889, together with Starry Night Over the Rhone. He wrote to Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. The Irises are a beautiful study full of air and life." The painting is one of his most renowned works.
Check out the full Wikipedia article about Irises (painting)
