How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers
--Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917), French art critic and the first owner of Irises
Vincent van Gogh painted Irises in the last year of his life, in the garden of the asylum at Saint-Remy, 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 Independants 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.
This groundbreaking book fills a gap in Van Gogh scholarship with an in-depth study of Irises--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 Irises, but also a panoply of nature paintings from collections around the world, by Van Gogh and the artists who inspired him, such as Albrecht Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, and Paul Gauguin."

From ancient times, people had knowledge of the zodiac's intimate involvement in the creation of physical life. They understood that the twelve realms of constellations of fixed stars in the sky emanated specific forces that were brought to life and movement by the planets. These spiritual energies created and formed all living beings on earth - including, of course, the human being. This traditional awareness has been reenlivened and given new meaning in our time through Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. Steiner gave specific indications involving twelve individual gestures and colours that depict the forces of the twelve zodiacal regions. In this richly-illustrated collation of original artistic research - which features exciting new work on the zodiac via the mediums of sculpture, graphics and painting - these new insights are explored and illumined in twenty-seven essays and numerous full-colour images. Led by editor Gertraud Goodwin, the various contributing artists offer a rich tableau of authentic, individual approaches to understanding the zodiac, throwing light on the vast realm of creative forces around us whilst acknowledging their primary source. 'From the many relationships to other qualities, like the consonants, virtues, areas of the human body, colours, eurythmy gestures, elements (earth, water, air, fire), musical keys and many more, in which the zodiacal forces express themselves as if through different instruments, a harmony begins to emerge, which informs me of an ever rounder picture of one particular force of the Zodiac.' - Gertraud Goodwin