39 VINCENT VAN GOGH The episodes of self­mutilation and hospitalization that followed his quarrel with Paul Dutch, 1853­1890 Gauguin finally prompted Van Gogh to have himself admitted in May 1889 to the Irises, 1889 asylum Saint­Paul­de­Mausole in Saint­Remy de Provence, France. Despite occasional, Oil on canvas disturbing recurrences, Van Gogh produced almost 130 paintings during his year of 71 x 93 cm (28 x 36 in.) recuperation in Saint­Remy. Although he was not permitted to leave the grounds for At lower right, signed Vincent 90.PA.20 the first month, the overgrown and somewhat untended garden of the asylum provided ample material for his paintings, which he worked, as was his practice, directly from life. In the first week Van Gogh reported to his brother Theo that he had begun work on "some violet irises." That Van Gogh was deeply affected by the regenerative powers of nature comes across clearly even in this limited view. There is a muscularity to the blue­violet blooms supported on their sturdy stems amid swaying, pointy­tipped leaves that almost forcefully push their way through the red earth. Even the contemporary critic Felix Feneon described the Irises in anthropomorphic terms, although he saw destruction rather than renewal in the image: "The 'Irises' violently slash into long strips, their violet petals on sword­like leaves." Incorporating lessons learned from Pointillist color theory, Impressionist subject matter, and Japanese woodblock printmakers, Van Gogh distills the garden patch into patterned areas of vivid color. The composition, with its impastoed brushwork intact and unfaded, is bisected horizontally by waving bands of cool green leaves. Above, the varied clumps of violet petals (set off by a lone white iris) are placed in contrast over the warm green ground of the distant, sunlit meadow. Below, the same violet shades reverberate in juxtaposition with the red­brown of the Provencal soil, built up with striated parallel brushstrokes. The cropped nature of the composition most likely led Van Gogh to describe the Getty canvas as a study after narure rather than a finished painting in a letter to his brother. Nevertheless, among the eleven canvases he received in July, Theo chose only the Irises to accompany the earlier Starry Night (New York, Museum of Modern Art) as Van Gogh's submission to the Salon des Independants in September 1889. PS DUTCH AND FLEMISH SCHOOLS 73