On May 1, 1857 Vincent van Gogh’s younger brother Theo was born. Theo was Vincent’s closest confident, best friend and biggest supporter. Although they didn’t live together much during their adult years and didn’t get to see each other very often, they stayed in touch through the hundreds of letters that Vincent wrote.
One of the memories that Van Gogh painted from when he was in Saint Remy was cottages with thatched roofs. He seemed to long for the familiarity of home and wanted to revisit some of his earlier works.
Van Gogh completed Irises in May of 1889 when he was at the asylum in Saint-Rémy. Here he eased back into painting capturing flowers and foliage in the surrounding garden and the star filled nights from his window. In a letter to his brother Theo from May of 1889, Van Gogh wrote: “The idea of…
