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Irises is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It was one of his first
works while he was at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence,
France in the last year before his death in 1890.
It was painted before his first attack at the asylum. There is a lack of the
high tension which is seen in his later works. He called the painting "the
lightning conductor for my illness", because he felt that he could keep
himself from going insane by continuing to paint.
The painting was influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, like many
of his works and those by other artists of the time. The similarities occur
with strong outlines, unusual angles, including close-up views and also flattish
local colour (not modelled according to the fall of light).
He considered this painting a study, which is probably why there are no known
drawings for it, although Theo, Van Gogh's brother, thought better of it and
quickly submitted it to the annual exhibition of the Société des
Artistes Indépendants in September 1889, together with Starry Night over
the Rhone. He wrote to Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye
from afar. The Irises are a beautiful study full of air and life." Ravensburger HistoryRavensburger Spieleverlag GmbH is a German game company and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market.
The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named "Journey around the world".
At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, Art Instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial Patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia.
Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977 the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm.
Today there are approximately 1,800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and FX Schmid for games and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries.
In September 2010, Ravensburger broke Educa's record for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle of 24,000 pieces. Ravensburger's new puzzle design by late pop artist Keith Haring titled, 'Keith Haring: Double Retrospect' breaks the Guinness Book of World Records measuring 17' × 6' built from 32,256 pieces and comes with its own dolly cart for toting. |
