Irises
Vincent Van Gogh
VINCENT VAN GOGH, 1890. OIL ON CANVAS.
The irises want to escape. Escape the porcelain jug that has become their vase and escape the confines of the small canvas they live on. Painted in the final days of Van Gogh’s stay at the Saint-Rèmy asylum, it was the last of four paintings of irises Van Gogh created in his life. Two were painted during his time in the asylum and two in the year immediately before. The differences between these works are staggering. The earlier pair depict irises in the wild, the natural background energetic and free as the flowers rise from the earth in freedom. The latter pair are confined, placed on tables against flat backgrounds, longing to be wild but starting to wilt. Van Gogh was an iris, a wild-flower, who found rare beauty in nature, and saw the beauty of wilderness in his confinement.