Van Gogh painted Irises in May 1889, within his first week at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he had admitted himself after a mental health crisis. The flowers grew in the asylum garden.

He called painting "the lightning conductor for my illness", and this one seems full of life rather than distress: twisting leaves, swirling blue petals, and — on the left — one single white iris standing apart from the crowd.

The bold outlines and flat areas of colour show the influence of Japanese woodblock prints, which he loved. In 1987, nearly a century after he died having sold very few paintings, Irises sold at auction for more than 50 million dollars, then the highest price ever paid for a painting.