Vincent van Gogh | Field with Irises near Arles, 1888

Van Gogh was captivated by the colours of the landscape around the town of Arles (FR).

He particularly loved the contrast between the yellow and purple flowers in the fields.

In the landscape, he felt he could see a reflection of the world he knew from his collection of Japanese prints.

Japanese artists used large areas of colour in their compositions, often with a sharp diagonal.

They also regularly zoomed in on a detail in the foreground.

Van Gogh adopted these elements in his paintings.

Vincent van Gogh | Field with Irises near Arles, May 1888 | Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

It was just like 'a Japanese dream', he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo.

The painting was recently examined and restored.

In the process, the old discoloured varnish layer which had dulled the colours was removed.

The colours are now much brighter. | © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Vincent van Gogh | Irises, 1890 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Title: Irises

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853-1890, Auvers-sur-Oise)

Date: 1890

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 29 x 36 1/4 in. (73.7 x 92.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Adele R. Levy, 1958

Accession Number: 58.187

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 825.

In May 1890, just before he checked himself out of the asylum at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted four exuberant bouquets of spring flowers, the only still lifes of any ambition he had undertaken during his yearlong stay: two of irises, two of roses, in contrasting color schemes and formats.

In the Museum’s Irises he sought a “harmonious and soft” effect by placing the “violet” flowers against a “pink background”, which have since faded owing to his use of fugitive red pigments.

Another work from this series, Roses (1993.400.5), hangs in the adjacent gallery.

Both were owned by the artist’s mother until her death in 1907. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Vincent van Gogh | Irises, 1890 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

On the eve of his departure from the asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1890, Van Gogh painted an exceptional group of four still lifes, to which both The Met's Roses and Irises belong. These bouquets and their counterparts - an upright composition of irises (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) and a horizontal composition of roses (National Gallery of Art, Washington) - were conceived as a series or ensemble.

Traces of pink along the tabletop and rose petals in the present painting, which have faded over time, offer a faint reminder of the formerly more vivid "canvas of pink roses against a yellow-green background in a green vase".

This painting was seized by the Nazis from Georg Simon Hirschland (1885-1942) in Essen in 1939, following Hirschland's emigration to the United States in 1938.

It was restituted to his heirs in New York in 1950. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Vincent van Gogh | Vase with Gladioli and Chinese Asters, 1886