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.
About 25 years after Vincent’s death, people began to admire his art. Today, he is considered one of the most famous painters of all time.
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).
The painting is a snapshot of a somatic mutation frozen in time and serves as a reminder that every iris is capable of generating a white mutant; it is just a matter of time before time appears.
In Greek mythology, Iris is the goddess of the rainbow. Iris is beautiful maiden with wings and robes of bright colors a halo of light on her head. She flies from one end of the earth to the other at the speed of the wind, trialing across the sky with a rainbow of color in her wake.
For years, Irises had been a treasured part of the private collection of East Coast grande dame Joan Whitney Payson, and then of her son, John Whitney Payson.
When the Whitney scion arranged with Sotheby’s to sell it at auction in 1987 at the height of an impressionist craze, the buyer was an Australian tycoon Land Bond. But Bond ran into financial trouble and 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.
Irises Painting of Vincent van Gogh
