Color as Feeling

Vincent van Gogh

The Potato Eaters

1885

Oil on canvas, 82 × 114 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

A peasant family shares a meal of potatoes under a hanging lamp. He planned it as a showpiece, a difficult group scene meant to prove he could paint figures.

• The coarse faces and bony hands are deliberate. He put the message about honest labor ahead of correct anatomy and technical polish.
• Look at the five figures gathered close around one shared dish.
• He kept to earth colors, comparing the figures to a dusty, unpeeled potato.
• Critics faulted its dark palette and awkward drawing, though he was pleased with it.
• Related studies and sketches for it are in the same museum.

He painted it in the village of Nuenen in April and May. Today it ranks among his best-known paintings and hangs on view at the museum in Amsterdam.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art