A severe mental health crisis, in which he cut off his own ear, prompted Van Gogh to admit himself to the Saint-Paul Asylum at Saint-Rémy in the south of France. His recuperation began with paintings of the asylum garden, Irises chief among them. The close study of nature was the foundation of Van Gogh's art, as his precise delineation of individual flowers suggests, but he also brought to that study an astonishing degree of subjective intensity. We feel this in the painting's strong colors, thickly applied paint, and powerful decorative rhythms, all of which convey the artist's sense of nature's surging vitality.
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