Irises 1890
(click image to enlarge)
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City
Upon his arrival at the asylum n Saint-Remy in May 1890, Van Gogh painted views of the institutions' overgrown garden. He ignored still-life subjects during his yearlong hospital say, but before leaving the artist brought his work in Saint-Remy full circle with four lush bouquets of spring flowers: two of roses and two of irises, in contrasting formats and color harmonies. Van Gogh noted that in the "two canvases representing big bunches of violet irises, "he placed" one lot against a pink background" and the other "against a startling citron yellow background" to exploit the play of "disparate complementarity. "Owing to the use of afugitive red pigment, the "soft and harmonious" effect that he had sought in the Metropolitan painting through the "combination of greens, pinks, violets" has been altered by the fadingof the once pink background to almost white. Another still life from the series, an upright composition of roses, is on this blog. Both were owned by he artist's mother, who kept them until her death in 1907.
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