Van Gogh painted these flowers while he was in Arles. Van Gogh was drawn to nature and his paintings of nature have a spiritual and uplifting quality to them. It was fortunate that he left Paris in 1888 for the relative peace he found in the south of France. Here the countryside seemed to welcome him and he could devote every waking moment to painting. He had absorbed much from his time spent in Paris that added to his development as an artist but in Arles he found the right atmosphere for his art to bloom.
         The irises in this painting are alive with motion as if they are dancing. Van Gogh uses complimentary colors, here they are blues with oranges, for a stimulating color contrast and he paints with greens, gold, and yellows to create from the ordinary a visual of the sublime.