Let's talk about how he painted the painting "Irises" by Van Gogh

Around the name of this Dutch painter there are many myths and conjectures, but one thing remains certain: Vincent Van Gogh is the genius of the post-impressionist era.

Painting as a Confession

Van Gogh's painting "Irises", written in May 1889, is not only a masterpiece confirming the emotional and unique manner of writing of the great artist, it is also a touching attempt to tell the world about his passion for painting and his loneliness. In the composition, in colors, in the technique of execution, there is a hidden idea of the master that the unthinkable cosmic splendor of nature reflects the universe of human souls. To see this, let's take a look at what time and under what circumstances created his "Irises" by Van Gogh, and what preceded the writing of this colorful canvas.

Biography pages

Vincent Van Gogh was born in the small Dutch town of Zunderte, was brought up in the spirit of religious asceticism. He got a good education, he knew languages. At one time, the young man dreamed of the fate of the priest, preparing to follow in the footsteps of his father, the pastor of the local church. At the age of twenty, Vincent made a successful career in the firm of his uncle, who sold paintings. This work gave Van Gogh a taste for high painting. The experience of a missionary in a gloomy mining town on the border of Belgium and France opened up in the young preacher such acute compassion for the unfortunate miners and their families that Van Gogh decided to share with them their sufferings, frost, starvation and dozens of sketches and sketches. The first heroes of the master's paintings were workers and peasants. His cherished luck he considered written in 1885 "Eaters of Potatoes, ruthlessly criticized by friends.

Parisian impressions

When solitude bored Vincent, he went to Paris, boiling of life, plunged into the world of impressionism. From this moment his painting becomes lighter and more colorful. Still far ahead of his famous "Irises". Van Gogh draws flowers for weeks, achieving a contrast in which mixed tones correspond to sharp opposites. During the same period, Vincent "fell ill" with Japanese prints. Together with his brother Theo and on his money Vincent buys colorful prints, collecting a bizarre Oriental collection, tirelessly copies them, adding his own artistic handwriting. Echoes of this passion shows and the picture of "Irises". Van Gogh wrote it with the same charm of color and carved lines that he enjoyed in Japanese prints, and with the same non-Western simplicity of perspective.

A period of hope, doubt and tears

The Parisian life with furious controversy, night vigils behind absinthe exhausted the artist, whom friends and women often rejected because of his gusty strange nature, and he left for the southern province of France - Arles. Here Vincent resignedly surrendered to the charm of nature and devoted himself to the search for harmony in its pure and furious colors. Here, Van Gogh convinced his friend Gauguin to come to create a community of artists. Two months of joint creativity led two geniuses to a fiery quarrel, after which Vincent injured his left ear and got into a psychiatric clinic. Nervous attacks, the artist suffered more often, the diagnosis that put him a doctor, sounds now as a bipolar personality disorder . From the hospital in Arles, where he created more than 150 paintings, the artist agreed to move to a clinic near the village of San Remy, where solitude and architecture cast a monastic spirit into the painting of a brilliant Dutchman. His first work in this place was "Irises". Van Gogh wrote these delightful spring flowers, symbolizing in the local folklore the awakening and resurrection, as if played a musical opus.

Symphony in colors

Gardens in San Remi became his mystical planet, the artist writes flowers, butterflies, beetles. He is moved by the eastern idea that in every blade of grass and a beetle there is a cosmos. The master writes passionately, impulsively, juicyly. As if the sound rhythms put brush strokes and lines in the painting "Irises" by Van Gogh. The canvas's description can be compared to how colorful bends on the front and back planes of the picture pulsate like a melody pours. It is no accident that the painter admitted in a letter to his brother that the brush in his hand is like a violin bow. The author writes dynamically, rushing first to the climax, and then to the completion of the canvas. In the sun-drenched background of the field and the red earth, the saturated blue flowers are raging, among which one white iris suddenly stands out . Is not the artist personifying this flower, unlike other flowers?

What the genius dreamed about

The recognition came to the painter during his lifetime. Critics wrote about the stunning expression of his canvases and the fact that the color in his canvases looks like a jewel, and the content of the pictures opens up to a courageous and refined personality. But this did not save the artist from the tragedy. In July 1890, at the age of 37, he shot himself in the chest and two days later he died.

One day the artist told his brother that he had been trying all his life to have something comforting in his art. Well, today we can definitely say that the dream of the great Van Gogh has come true ...