Vincent van Gogh - The Potato Eaters

The Potato Eaters, painted in 1885 in oil on canvas by Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh in Nuenen. Five peasants gather around a small table beneath a single lamp, sharing a simple evening meal in a dark rural interior. Van Gogh deliberately used earthy colours and rough features to emphasize the physical life of people who worked the land, insisting that their hands should show the labour by which they had earned their food. He regarded the painting as an important statement of his ambition to create a truthful image of peasant life.