Recent scientific research reveals the stunning original hues of the Van Gogh’s Irises.
Irises, 1889, Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas, 74.3 x 94.3 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Speakers: Devi Ormond, Associate Paintings Conservator, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and Beth Harris, Executive Director, Smarthistory
What is the life of a painting after it is painted? Getty scientists explore this question by studying the colors of Van Gogh’s iconic Irises. Learning what has happened to it over a century since its creation. Unveiling new scientific evidence supporting long held scholarly theories about the painting.
Getty has joined forces with Smarthistory to bring you an in-depth look at select works within our collection, whether you want to learn more at home or make art more accessible in your classroom. This video series illuminates art history concepts through fun, unscripted conversations between art historians, curators, archaeologists, scientists, and artists, committed to a fresh take on the history of visual arts.
“Irises” is featured in the exhibition “Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh’s Irises,” part of the larger initiative “PST ART: Art & Science Collide.”
0:00:05.4 Dr. Beth Harris: We’re in the galleries at the Getty Museum, and we’re looking at one of the great treasures here, Van Gogh’s “Irises,” from 1889. We want to take a look at the painting, thinking about its life, and what’s happened in the more than a century since Van Gogh painted it.
0:00:20.8 Devi Ormond: Yes. It’s extraordinary really, when you look at works of art and think how they age, not that dissimilar to us as humans. And as much as we love the painting as it currently is now, we have recently carried out in-depth research and discovered that in fact there has been considerable fading of a particular red pigment called geranium lake. And that geranium lake was used with the blues to create wonderful violet colors.
0:00:54.1 Dr. Beth Harris: We know that Van Gogh was, like so many artists of the time, interested in scientific color theory and the idea that colors that are placed next to one another impact each other.
0:01:08.2 Devi Ormond: He was reading extensively, works by Michel Eugène Chevreul and also Charles Blanc, talking about color theory and simultaneous color contrasts. When we look at the painting, you’ll see the red foreground and the green leaves are complementing each other and making each other appear more bright, and what would’ve originally been violet or purple petals of the irises contrasting with the yellow flowers in the background. So I think even though currently we look at the painting and we are pretty amazed by how vibrant it is, I think originally, when it left the easel, you would’ve had those contrasting colors. And the most interesting thing is, is by the recent research that we’ve carried out, we’re almost confirming what Van Gogh wrote, that when Van Gogh arrived at the hospital in Saint-Remy on the 8th of May, 1889, he took out his easel the following morning and started painting on this painting in particular. Confirming that is a letter we know Van Gogh wrote to his brother. “I’m in the process of painting two works, one of violet irises and the other a lilac bush.”
0:02:22.0 Dr. Beth Harris: So he didn’t say blue irises.
0:02:23.5 Devi Ormond: He did not say blue irises. And as we know, Van Gogh was fascinated by color. So for him to write the wrong term seems a little bit unusual.
0:02:32.9 Dr. Beth Harris: And in fact, we have many letters where he wrote to his brother, asking specifically for certain kinds, certain colors of paint. So he was very learned and careful about the pigments that he was purchasing.
0:02:47.2 Devi Ormond: And what this research has unveiled for us is really something extraordinary. So for many, many years, scholars have known because of this letter that the irises were violet, but we have never had any hard scientific evidence to prove that this was the case.
0:03:02.4 Dr. Beth Harris: Until now.
0:03:02.9 Devi Ormond: Until now. And I speak on behalf of the scientists, because they have really done all the hard work, and they’ve used various methods to do this, both non-invasive methods and invasive methods. And the non-invasive methods has been able to actually identify the location of remnants of the red paint that we can’t see with the naked eye, and they’ve taken a very, very small bit of paint and mounted that in resin and created a cross-section so that we can see the whole layer structure of the paint. And what it has shown us is that the uppermost layer is blue, but as we go down deeper into the painting, you see this wonderful violet color, which is the original color before it started to fade.
0:03:51.2 Dr. Beth Harris: Van Gogh is sitting amongst the irises in the garden at Saint-Remy, this place where he has voluntarily gone to take care of his mental health, and he’s painting what’s available to him. He’s painting the irises in the garden and he sits down among them. And he mixes this geranium lake red and blue to make violet, to make purple. And that geranium lake paint has faded and left only the blue.
0:04:23.2 Devi Ormond: What we were able to find out from the analysis was that he used two types of blue. So it was a cobalt blue and an ultramarine. So many different shades and hues of violet would’ve been in these petals that we now see.
0:04:35.7 Dr. Beth Harris: And we can also see by looking at the layers of paint how some of the pigment that now looks a kind of muddy brown was once a brilliant orange.
0:04:44.0 Devi Ormond: When you look up into the top left corner of the painting, you see this wonderful cluster of yellow flowers, and in some of them, you see a dark, almost liver colored, it’s a bit of a nondescript color. And what we discovered through close looking under the microscope of the painting, and also through pigment identification, is that there seems to be a very brilliant red that has discolored to this dirty-looking brown. So you can imagine the center of these flowers would’ve been quite brilliant contrasting against the green.
0:05:14.7 Dr. Beth Harris: And that makes me wonder, what do we do in the museum when this is presented to the public?
0:05:20.8 Devi Ormond: And we have been working very, very closely with experts in multi-spectral imaging, experts in pigment identification, a color scientist, and we are trying to simulate what we think would be a close rendition to how the painting looked when Van Gogh left. Based on the science and the data we’ve collected from all the analysis, but also standing back and looking at this as an artistic piece, it was really a moment of experimentation and new colors that were coming out. It was an incredibly exciting time. And I think Van Gogh’s period in Paris opened an entire new world for him. He was mixing with the likes of Seurat and Signac and Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, and he was getting a lot of insight into these new materials, and I think he embraced it all. And then when he went down south, the amazing colors of Provence and the light really suited his style of painting and his color palette.
0:06:17.7 Dr. Beth Harris: It is important for us to remember just how new these kinds of vibrant colors were, and that the creation of these colors through chemical innovation was incredibly exciting.
0:06:30.0 Devi Ormond: Exactly. And I think also you think about psychology, psychiatry in the 19th century, the doctor at the asylum was quite innovative in many ways, and that he allowed Van Gogh to bring his paints and to paint in the asylum while he was there. According to the current director of the hospital, Dr. Boulon, who has been incredibly generous with us, he was of the opinion that this was really the first indication of a form of art therapy. And certainly Van Gogh found solace amongst nature. But for that first month that he was in the hospital, he was not allowed to leave the premises, so the only access to nature he had was this walled garden and the view from his window where he could look out into the fields and to the Alpilles mountain range and the wonderful clouds in the sky. So for that first month, that was the only access he had to something that he got great comfort from.
0:07:25.3 Dr. Beth Harris: There’s something really poignant to me about the way that these colors have changed over time, and also the way that flowers bloom, and as they’re blooming, one is filled with the sadness of knowing that they’re fugitive and ephemeral. And combining that with this first week or two in the hospital where he’s gone to try to feel better, it’s really moving to stand in front of this painting and think about its life over time.
0:07:56.6 Devi Ormond: When you look at the petals of the irises, you have them here very much in full bloom, but if you look to the background, you have these very strange-looking irises. That’s what happens with the petal of the irises. It ages, it sort of crawls in on itself. And these have been applied on top of paint already. So it’s given you this impression that he has gone back to that area, and he has now seen some petals that are dying, and he wants to put them into the composition as well. So sort of, it captures the transience of life in many ways.
0:08:29.0 Dr. Beth Harris: And so we can see where he’s painted on top of wet paint, and we can see the way that one color merged in with another. And colors are such joyful things in some ways. One almost can imagine him relishing the application of these beautiful colors onto this canvas.
0:08:48.2 Devi Ormond: I think he would’ve got great joy from doing that. And I think the joy that it passed on over generation, generation is extraordinary. Even when you look down at his signature, he has actually gone back to his signature and strengthened his name. If you can imagine, these were more violet, the signature would stand out an awful lot more. So it’ll be interesting to see how that comes out in the color reconstruction that we’re working on.
0:09:10.0 Dr. Beth Harris: I have a greater sense of him; not the Van Gogh of an idea, but a real person who was ill, who was seeking healing and solace in this part of the garden.
0:09:21.8 Devi Ormond: And that he was allowed to paint, that he was allowed to find comfort through art, and it’s an interesting little story, and that what brought us, myself and my colleague Catherine Patterson, the scientist, to the garden and to this hospital, was that we found embedded in the paint something that looked like plant material. We reached out to Dr. Boulon, who very generously invited us to come to the garden, where we found all over the floor of the garden pollen cones that belong to what we believe is the umbrella pine tree. So really it was that tiny little seed that brought us to the garden that then enabled us to see these irises in their pure violet color, as Van Gogh would’ve seen it. And I can only speak for myself, but I think both Catherine and I felt this overwhelming sense of place and tranquility.
