Van Gogh's Irises Were Built on a Color Pairing — So I Start With the Wrong One

In the video I take a Van Gogh iris and paint it backwards: the violet flower blocked in a sour yellow-green before it cools into the deep blue-violet you expect. Irises are a gift for this exercise, because the whole bouquet was conceived around a single color relationship — and once you know what that relationship is, you can't unsee it.

This is also one of the most poignant paintings in the series, made at a very particular moment. Knowing when and why Van Gogh painted it changes how you look at every petal. So before we misbehave with the color, let me tell you where this bouquet comes from.

The painting: a farewell at Saint-Rémy, 1890

The Met's Irises was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1890, in his final year, while he was a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In May 1890, on the eve of leaving the asylum, he painted four large bouquets of spring flowers — two of irises and two of roses — the only ambitious still lifes he attempted during his year there. He described them to his brother Theo as "large bouquets" he was working on, and they were conceived as an ensemble, a kind of farewell decoration. He checked himself out of the asylum days later; the paintings were left to dry and sent on to him afterward. He died that July. The painting now hangs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Here's the detail that matters most for a color lesson. Van Gogh aimed for what he called a "harmonious and soft" effect by setting the violet irises against a pink background. That pink has since faded — he used a fugitive red pigment that didn't last, so the ground now reads cooler and whiter than he intended. But the intention is the lesson: he deliberately chose a background color to make the flowers sing. This wasn't an accident of nature; it was a decision.

Why painters start with the wrong color

The decision Van Gogh made is the principle underneath this whole series: complementary colors — opposites on the color wheel — make each other come alive.

Violet and yellow are textbook complements; violet and a warm pink-red are close cousins of the same warm-against-cool pairing. Set violet flowers against a warm ground and simultaneous contrast kicks in: the violet deepens and glows, the ground warms, each pushing the other to its extreme. That "harmonious and soft" effect Van Gogh chased was simultaneous contrast, dialled gentle. Now bring it into watercolor and add a second layer. If you underpaint a violet iris in a warm yellow-gold and then glaze the true violet on top, the violet ignites against the gold breathing through from below — the petal stops being a flat lilac shape and starts to glow, exactly the emotional charge of color that drove his work to the very end.

It's old knowledge in new clothes. Renaissance painters underpainted skin with cool green-earth verdaccio so warm flesh would sing over it — you can still spot the green in thinly painted old panels. Van Gogh's generation rediscovered the principle and turned the volume up. We do both at once: warm complement underneath, true violet glazed over the top.

Try it yourself

A watercolor exercise in violet-over-gold, the Van Gogh way. When the glazing clicks, carry it into a full watercolour flowers tutorial for more practice with luminous petals.

1. Pick a violet-flower subject. A few irises, or any blue-violet bloom you can see clearly. Violet flowers are perfect because you know their color cold, so the yellow-green "wrong" phase reads as satisfyingly wrong.
2. Mix the warm complement. For a deep iris violet, mix a warm yellow-gold underpainting — yellow ochre with a touch of raw sienna. Mix your true violet separately from a red and a blue so it stays luminous, not chalky.
3. Underpaint the flowers gold. Wash that warm yellow over each blossom, modeling the form — darker in the throat and folded petals, lighter at the lit edges. Leave the brightest highlights as bare paper.
4. Let it dry completely. Watercolor demands it: glaze onto a damp gold pass and it lifts into mud. Wait for a bone-dry surface.
5. Glaze the true violet over the gold. Lay transparent violet over the dried gold, thinner where the light hits so the gold glows through, denser in the petal valleys. Watch each iris light up against its complement. Keep the background soft and warm — that's Van Gogh's "harmonious" pairing at work.
6. Finish with movement. Add the spiky drawing of the petals with a few directional strokes, drop cooler blue accents into the deepest folds, and keep the brushwork alive. Van Gogh's flowers move — let yours move too.

If the violet feels dead, your glaze probably smothered the gold completely — pull it thinner and let more warmth breathe through. That glow is the painting. It's the harmony Van Gogh was reaching for in his last spring, violet against warmth, soft and singing at once.

What should I paint wrong next — another Van Gogh, or a flower from your own garden? Tell me in the comments. The next one in the series might be your idea.