Vincent Van Gogh’s Irises: Venturing Upon Dizzy Heights

Abstract

Vincent Van Gogh’s still life floral paintings seem to explore the place of empty space and branches and floral stalks in an unconscious indebtedness to Japanese painting values. Van Gogh’s reliance on, particularly, Japanese woodblock art, such as his “Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige),” is well-known. His “Almond Blossom,” however, is simply comprised of the tops of blossoming branches against a vast blue sky and reflects, in essence, nothing so much as the oriental aesthetics of floral studies where, for example, a section of bamboo stalk surrounded by empty space comprises a painting. His “Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass” is another example. While retaining some elements of the traditional floral still life, he revolutionized the form through his emphasis on blocks of bright color and the oriental values of open space, minimalism, and natural form, even in his famous sunflowers and irises.

They all have an intensity of color you have not attained before… and while others do violence to the form in order to pursue symbolic ideas, I see that you have achieved that in many of your canvases by conveying the quintessence of your thought about nature and living beings, which, you feel, are so closely bound up with them.

—Theo Van Gogh, letter on Irises ¹

A small town surrounded by countryside filled with yellow and purple flowers—you can imagine, very much a Japanese dream

—Vincent Van Gogh, letter on Field with Flowers nearArles ²