Irises in Bloom
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Irises in Bloom
Tracing Vincent van Gogh’s footsteps at the psychiatric clinic where he painted one of his most enduring works
Devi Ormond and Dr. Jean-Marc Boulon search the clinic’s grounds for plant material that matches what was found embedded in the paint of Irises.
By Erin Migdol, Oct 16, 2024
Article
In May 1889, after a mental health episode culminated in Vincent van Gogh severing his left ear, the artist, accompanied by the Reverend Salles, arrived at the psychiatric clinic Saint-Paul-de-Mausole outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and voluntarily committed himself for treatment.
Van Gogh would spend the next year there in what would become one of the most productive artistic periods of his life—he finished around 130 paintings while undergoing inpatient therapy. One of these works was Irises, which he based on the bearded blossoms that bloomed and danced in the breeze in the clinic’s garden.
Van Gogh died in 1890 in a presumed suicide just a few months after leaving the clinic. Over a century later, Irises is one of the most cherished works in Getty’s collection. Getty conservators had long wanted to examine the artist’s materials and technique and investigate whether there were any indications of deterioration, such as color changes to the paints he used. They also wanted to add to the international scholarship on Van Gogh and his materials by conducting their own research.
The psychiatric clinic at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
As part of this process, Getty Museum associate paintings conservator Devi Ormond and Getty Conservation Institute research chemist Catherine Patterson took a walk in Van Gogh’s shoes. They visited the same clinic where he lived and painted Irises and were given access to the private garden, where they looked for clues about the flowers he so energetically painted. Their findings, plus additional scientific research conducted on the work, is the focus of the new Getty Center exhibition Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh’s "Irises," part of Getty’s exhibition series PST ART: Art & Science Collide.
"Once you embed yourself in that time and place, you realize just how much Van Gogh must have been suffering personally, and yet was able to create this amazing work of beauty," Patterson says. "And there’s something about that that was just incredibly moving."
Peeling back the layers of Irises
Interest in taking a more in-depth, scientific look at Irises goes back nearly 10 years. But a big challenge always loomed: finding the right time to take Irises off the gallery wall for study, when museum visitors thronged to see the popular work. In 2020 the museum closure prompted by the Covid pandemic offered an unexpected opportunity; with no visitors in the galleries, Irises could come down to be researched. Ormond and Patterson examined the painting using a variety of imaging techniques: stereo microscopy to magnify the work, infrared reflectography and x-radiography to look through its layers, and macro x-ray fluorescence scanning to identify its chemical elements.
One of their first delightful discoveries: a tiny bit of plant material in the corner of the painting. They also proved their suspicion that the irises had originally been violet, not blue. Van Gogh had described the irises as violet in a letter to his brother, Theo, and the red paint Van Gogh used is known to be susceptible to fading when exposed to light. And in the studio one day, they found a small area of damage in the paint in one of the blue irises. When they removed it, they lifted out the top blue layer of paint and saw preserved purple paint underneath. "We got to see Van Gogh’s original purple for the first time in 130 years," Patterson says.
Devi Ormond and Michelle Tenggara study a magnified section of Irises.
Those two discoveries inspired them to visit the clinic—which is still operating—to see the garden in person. "We thought, if he said he painted violet irises, well, there should be violet irises in the garden," Ormond says. "So let’s see if we can go and actually see these irises, if they’re still there." (Bearded irises are perennials and can survive for long periods.) But Van Gogh didn’t always paint things that literally existed—Starry Night, for example, is an imagined view of the sky—so was that his intent with Irises too?
Ormond located the phone number of Jean-Marc Boulon, the clinic’s medical director, and called him. She explained their discoveries and asked about the garden: had it changed much since the 19th century? Boulon assured her it hadn’t. Was there a gardener they could send a picture of the plant material to, so he or she might tell them what it is? Boulon said there was no gardener they could speak to—but would they like to come to the garden and have a look for themselves?
"This was a huge privilege to be invited, because the garden is not open to the public," Ormond says.
In May 2022, Ormond and Patterson made their way from Los Angeles to Saint-Paul with two goals in mind: to see if they could identify the plant material, and to see the irises in bloom exactly 133 years after Van Gogh painted them.
Irises, 1889, Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas. Getty Museum
Inside the clinic
Once they arrived at the clinic and walked into the garden, they made a discovery they weren’t expecting. "Off we went, full of anticipation, only to find that most of the irises had already bloomed and died," Ormond says.
Still, the trip offered an enlightening introduction to the garden, clinic, and life that Van Gogh may have led there. Ormond and Patterson determined that the plant material they had discovered in the painting most likely came from the umbrella pine tree found in the garden and all over the south of France. They also determined the exact location where Van Gogh had painted Irises and possibly another work, Lilac Bush, now housed in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. They took photographs of the garden for Getty’s exhibition designers to use as inspiration for the future show and spent hours just sitting in the garden in quiet contemplation, enjoying it much as it would have been in Van Gogh’s day.
Boulon introduced them to the patients and staff and showed them around the clinic: the lunchroom; the old shower room, where patients used to undergo a now-defunct practice called hydrotherapy; and the art studio Valetudo, which Boulon created for patients to participate in art therapy.
"Dr. Boulon is a trained psychiatrist, but he’s also a practicing artist," Patterson says. "It feels like he’s embodying the best of the Van Gogh story and using it to better the lives of individual patients. It was a very affecting experience to see that and to realize that we were brought to that experience by Van Gogh over this distance of 133 years."
Van Gogh as an artist and scientist
When Ormond and Patterson returned home, they were eager to figure out a way to bring the garden to Getty and show visitors what they had experienced. They decided the best way would be to create a video documenting the garden and the clinic—and to their delight, Boulon was open to this idea. Apart from a brief shot in the 2018 movie At Eternity’s Gate, this was the first time filming would be allowed in the garden.
Irises bloom on the grounds of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric clinic.
Ormond and Patterson also felt it was important to try and actually see the irises in full bloom. So in 2023, Ormond returned to Saint-Rémy, this time in April instead of May, with Getty’s film crew in tow. Happily, the irises were blooming. "They were really violet, and they were everywhere," Ormond says. "It confirmed that what we had seen in the painting was now what I was seeing in real life. And that was pretty extraordinary."
While the crew filmed the garden and clinic and conducted interviews with Boulon, Ormond spent more time in the garden and took a day trip to Arles, the nearby town where Van Gogh had lived before seeking treatment at Saint-Paul.
In the exhibition, visitors can delve deeper into the ways art and science interact and reinforce one another in the study of Irises. Like all of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide exhibitions, Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh’s "Irises" revolves around light: how Van Gogh’s understanding of light and color informed his painting, how light changed some of the colors in Irises, and how conservators and scientists harnessed the power of light to uncover the artist’s materials and methods. On the exhibition’s website, visitors can also watch the video filmed at Saint-Rémy to get a glimpse of the place where Van Gogh painted Irises.
Touring Saint-Paul and seeing the spot Irises was painted opened Patterson’s eyes to the ways art and science intersected within Van Gogh himself. "The visit made me stop and think about Van Gogh as a scientist, as an observer, as somebody part of an ecosystem putting on canvas what he was seeing and experiencing," Patterson says.
Dr. Jean-Marc Boulon and Catherine Patterson
For Ormond and Patterson, getting a firsthand glimpse into Van Gogh’s mental state allowed them to step outside their usual scientific framework for viewing art and peek at the very human challenges Van Gogh was coping with when he painted Irises. And that made the painting all the more spectacular.
"I was looking at the work’s amazing buildup of paint and swirling of colors and realized that I had neglected to look at the context in which he was doing this," says Ormond. "He had cut off most of his left ear. He was all bandaged up. He was being excommunicated essentially from people he knew in Arles. And I think he was very much aware that something was seriously wrong with him. This unique experience at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole has really helped me to step back and see the painting from a more humane point of view. Taking into account the mental state in which Van Gogh created this masterpiece makes it all the more poignant."
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