File:Vincent van Gogh - Irises (1890).jpg

English: Upon his arrival at the asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1889, Van Gogh painted views of the institution's overgrown garden. He ignored still-life subjects during his yearlong hospital stay, but before leaving the artist brought his work in Saint-Rémy full circle with four lush bouquets of spring flowers: two of roses and two of irises, in contrasting formats and color harmonies. Van Gogh noted that in the "two canvases representing big bunches of violet irises," he placed "one lot against a pink background" and the other "against a startling citron yellow background" to exploit the play of "disparate complementaries." Owing to the use of a fugitive red pigment, the "soft and harmonious" effect that he had sought in the Metropolitan's painting through the "combination of greens, pinks, violets" has been altered by the fading of the once pink background to almost white. Another still life from the series, an upright composition of roses, is on view in the adjacent gallery. Both were owned by the artist's mother, who kept them until her death in 1907.^[1]