<em>How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers!</em><br> --Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917), French art critic and the first owner of <em>Irises</em><br> <br> Vincent van Gogh painted <em>Irises</em> in the last year of his life, in the garden of the asylum at Saint-R�my, where he was recuperating from an attack of mental illness. Although he considered the painting more a study than a finished picture, his brother Theo submitted it to the Salon des Ind�pendants in September 1889. Its energy and theme--the regenerative powers of the earth--express the artist's deeply held belief in the divinity of art and nature. <br> This groundbreaking book fills a gap in Van Gogh scholarship with an in-depth study of <em>Irises</em>--among the J. Paul Getty Museum's most famous paintings--placed in the context of his glorious flower and garden paintings. Full-color reproductions include not only <em>Irises</em>, but also a panoply of nature paintings from collections around the world, by Van Gogh and the artists who inspired him, such as Albrecht D�rer, Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, and Paul Gauguin.