Vincent van Gogh Paintings: "The Potato Eaters"
Posted by Susan Benford
An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.
Despite the fame of van Gogh paintings now, the early years of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) offered nary a hint of his future popularity.
Born in Groot-Zundert, Holland, the son of a Calvinist pastor, van Gogh dropped out of school in 1869 to work for an art dealer; he was fired seven years later. Van Gogh then spent two years as a lay preacher working with impoverished miners; he was denied ordination because he was considered "overly passionate" by Calvinist authorities. At the age of 27, van Gogh resolved to become an artist.
Beginning at this juncture and for the rest of his life, Vincent van Gogh received emotional and financial support from his brother, Theo. This support included frequent letters written
Jean-Francois Millet, The Sower. Oil on canvas, 1850. 40" x 32.5". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
between the two, providing not only insights into the specific intentions and contexts of van Gogh paintings, but also into Vincent's volatile mental health (Explore the complete collection of van Gogh letters written to, and received from, Theo, and letters Vincent van Gogh wrote to famous painters and friends like Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard).
From 1883 to 1885, van Gogh lived at his father's vicarage in Nuenen, Holland, where he created one of his most famous paintings, The Potato Eaters. Van Gogh was clearly influenced by the realistic art and peasant imagery of Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), as he conveyed in a letter to Theo:
"While I was doing it I thought again about what has so rightly been said of Millet's peasants - ‘His peasants seem to have been painted with the soil they sow'".
Van Gogh also admired Jozef Israels, a painter of fishermen and peasants whom van Gogh described to Theo as the "Dutch Millet".
Jozef Israels, Peasant Family at Table. Oil on canvas, 1882. Approximately 28" x 41". Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Between Millet's The Sower and Israels' Peasant Family at Table, van Gogh was motivated to create his own version of a peasants' meal.
Compositionally, The Potato Eaters echoes Israels' work of art. Van Gogh's painting, however, has darker hues, an impasto paint texture, and more influence from Rembrandt's tenebrism (a painting style employed by Caravaggio and followers in which a few objects are brightly lit while the majority are in heavy shadow). Its
Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters. Oil on canvas, 1885. Approximately 32" x 45". Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
perspective is askew - look how abruptly the ceiling beams recede - and reveals van Gogh's technical naivete.
And
Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters. Oil on canvas, 1885. Approximately 32" x 45". Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
genius.
Perhaps this lack of experience permits his passion to exude (explore this in other van Gogh paintings, too). The peasants' gnarled hands and fingers evince severe arthritic pain, while the folds and wrinkles in their tattered clothing seem to restrain some unwieldy, internal force. On the wall, the Crucifixion picture and clock seem poised to jump off the wall rather than remain attached. This explosive energy within this work of art is a heartfelt but unsentimental contrast to its solemnity and tranquility, in which these peasants have merely coffee and potatoes to eat after a physically taxing day.
Van Gogh was pleased with Potato Eaters, writing to Theo that
...in contrast to a great many other paintings, it has rusticity and a certain life in it. And then, although it's done differently, in a different century from the old Dutchmen, Ostade, for instance, it's nevertheless out of the heart of peasant life and - original.
Van Gogh's painting career was tragically abbreviated by an unspecifiable mental illness; the physician who admitted him to a psychiatric hospital in 1888 noted that van Gogh had "acute mania with hallucinations of sight and hearing." His failure to achieve financial stability was profoundly troubling - he sold only one painting, Red Vineyard at Arles, during his lifetime, according to some art historians; he had no patrons; and he was forced to remain financially dependent on Theo.
While most art historians contend that van Gogh died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1890 (in spite of having recently 
received a postive review from the art critic Alberet Aurier), a new book, Van Gogh: The Life (Smith and Naifeh) claims van Gogh was shot by local teenagers.
What is certain is that Vincent's impact on art history is incalcuabale: after one decade as a painter, he left 1000 van Gogh paintings, of which 70 were made in his final 70 days); and he inspired Fauvists, Expressionists and legions of famous painters including Gauguin (1848 - 1903), Matisse (1869 - 1854), Maurice Vlaminck (1876 - 1958), Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876 - 1907), and Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992).
Even with the brevity of his life and profound mental illness, van Gogh paintings are some of the most renown in the history of painting.
Van Gogh, Red Vineyard in Arles. Oil on canvas, 1888. Pushkin Museum.
Are you a fan of famous paintings?
So are the folks at Masterpiece Cards. We took 23 leading art history books (some 17,000 pages!) and researched which painters and paintings were cited from the 1440s to 1960s.
From the opinions of these 40 art historians, we selected the top 250 famous paintings and made them into a set of art history flashcards.
Look at sample art history flashcards!