The Amethyst Iris

About this work

The irises are the first thing you meet: a dense crowd of tall stems and blooms filling the lower two thirds of the sheet, so that the woman seems to rise out of a garden rather than stand in front of one. Their upward lines carry the eye to her face, lifted towards the light with the eyes closed, and to the hand resting on her chest, a gesture of stillness. Her lavender robe slips from one shoulder, its soft folds a paler echo of the flowers below. Above her the gold arch curls and divides into flowing Art Nouveau curves, closing the composition like the top of a window. Cream sky and violet corner panels hold the colours together. Close up, you can follow single blooms and stems through the crowd; from a distance the picture reads as one violet column crowned with gold.

The name Art Nouveau comes from a shop. In 1895 the dealer Siegfried Bing opened his Paris gallery, the Maison de l'Art Nouveau, and the label stuck to the whole style. Bing had made his reputation selling Japanese art, and Japanese prints, with their flat colour and bold plant forms, fed directly into the new design, a fashion known as Japonisme. The iris is a good example. It appears often in Japanese woodblock prints, and European designers took it up eagerly, using its tall leaves and curling petals on vases, textiles and posters. Alongside the lily it became one of the movement's signature flowers, and here it gives the composition its rising, vertical rhythm.

For a pair, The Emerald Lily is the natural partner, with the same closed-eyed calm in a cooler green. The Garden Sage, with its violet flower spike, can carry the purple into a neighbouring room or a smaller frame alongside. Lilac grey, soft plum, pale stone and warm white walls all flatter the irises; strong yellow walls tend to fight them. A slim gold frame echoes the arch, while a black frame makes the violet look deeper and more dramatic. Give it a generous mat and hang it at eye level. With the 7168 × 10752 px file, prints remain sharp to roughly 60 × 90 cm, ideal above a headboard. A Frame TV version with a gallery mat is included in the download.