Product Description

This expressive 100% silk scarf captures a detail of one
of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s most popular paintings, Irises, by Vincent van Gogh. Scarf is 18 x 59".
In May 1889, after episodes of mental illness,
Vincent van Gogh chose to enter an asylum
in Saint-Rémy, France. There, in the last year
before his death, he created almost 130
paintings. Within the first week, he began
Irises, working from nature in the asylum’s
garden. The cropped composition, divided into
broad areas of vivid color with monumental
irises overflowing its borders, was probably
influenced by the decorative patterning of
Japanese woodblock prints.
Each one of Van Gogh’s irises is unique. He
carefully studied their movements and shapes to
create a variety of curved silhouettes bounded
by wavy, twisting, and curling lines. The
painting’s first owner, French art critic Octave
Mirbeau, one of Van Gogh’s earliest supporters,
wrote: “How well he has understood the
exquisite nature of flowers!”