Focus on “The Potato Eaters” or Van Gogh’s unknown masterpiece

The potato eaters : here is the name of the work of art signed Vincent van Gogh and which is still very little known today. Let’s take the time to tell his story to bring it to light. Do you know this painting?

1885

In 1885, after several months of work, Vincent van Gogh produced a dark-toned portrait of a peasant family around their dining table: The potato eaters. A work with which he hoped to easily enter the Parisian art market.

However, this work has been the subject of criticism. Criticisms which later prompted the artist to make a second version of the painting. “He is very, very convinced of the power of his work and the message it conveys”explained to The Times Bredje Gerritse, curator.

The story of a work

Vincent van Gogh began to work on The potato eaters while living in Nuenen, a city in the Netherlands, with his parents. This city was home to several farmers, workers and weavers. It was, in other words, a great place to capture peasant life. At the time, the peasant meal was a popular theme. In order to best immortalize this theme, Vincent van Gogh visited places where peasants lived while they were eating their meals. He sketched the smallest details: clock, piece of bread, teapot…

Result: his work features five people around a table eating potatoes and drinking coffee. The people have the complexion to the colors of the earth. “Something like the color of a really dusty, unpeeled potato”has also explained theartist in person. Their hands, bony face, and dark eyes depict their long hours of hard work. A vision of peasant life that the artist did not choose to idealize.

Almost universal disapproval

However, the reception of the painting was negative, even violent. “You can do better than that”had written in a letter Anthon van Rappard, colleague and friend of Van Gogh. His painting was also not exhibited during his lifetime. This disapproval has therefore been almost universal. In a letter of reply to his friend, Vincent van Gogh defended body and soul The potato eaters. “What I’m trying to achieve with it is to be able to draw not a hand but the gesture, not a mathematically correct head but the overall expression. The sniff of the wind when a digger looks up, says or speaks. Life, in short »detailed the artist.

Later, around 1889, Vincent van Gogh therefore decided to embark on a new version of the painting. “The canvas should be completely black now, maybe I could redo it entirely from memory”he explained in a letter. He made several preparatory sketches for the second version but he ultimately never made a second definitive version.

Today, The potato eaters has a completely different success: it is considered one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings. “I really like that Van Gogh stands behind his own work. He says there’s a certain life to it, writing that although, of course, there are technical errors, but technical perfection is not what he is looking for; it is the impression he gives on peasant life that is much more important”concluded Bredje Gerritse.