How are you?
Currently, I am introducing
the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art
Stories”.
The 63rd story is “The Potato
Eaters” by Vincent van Gogh.
"The Potato Eaters" is an
oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in 1885.
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| Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh (1889) |
During March and early April 1885,
van Gogh sketched studies for the painting, and corresponded with his younger
brother Theo. He finished most of the work on the painting from 13 April to
early May, although he made minor changes at the end of the same year.
Van Gogh, who was trying to
represent peasants as they really were in the painting, deliberately chose
coarse and ugly models to portray the peasants in a natural and unspoiled way.
Shortly after painting it, his
friend Anthon van Rappard criticized the painting, and the incident was a blow
to Van Gogh's confidence as an emerging artist. However, in a letter to his
sister Willemina in Paris two years after the painting, he still considered it
as his most successful painting.
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| Anthon van Rappard |
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| Wilhemina Van Gogh |
Van Gogh is known to have admired the Belgian painter Charles de Groux, and especially his painting “The blessing before supper”. De Groux' work depicts a peasant family praying for God's grace before supper, closely linked to Christian representations of the Last Supper.
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| The Blessing before supper, Charles de Groux (1861) |
Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters" was inspired by this painting of de
Groux, and several versions of "The Potato Eaters" are as follows.
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| Study for The Potato Eaters |
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| Study for The Potato Eaters, Private collection (1885) |
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| Second Study for The Potato Eaters, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (1885) |
Van Gogh made a lithograph of the
painting before embarking on the painting proper, and in a letter to his
friend, he wrote that he made the lithograph from memory in a day.
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| The Potato Eaters, Lithography, Vincent van Gogh, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (April 1885) |
Van Gogh is known by many as a
Post-Impressionist, but his actual artistic roots are much closer to artists of
the Hague School such as Anton Mauve and Jozef Israëls.
Before van Gogh painted "The
Potato Eaters," Israëls had already treated the same subject in his
"A Peasant Family at the Table," and when referring to a letter to
Theo on March 11, 1882, van Gogh, who saw this painting, seems that he was
inspired to draw his own version of the painting.
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| A Peasant family at the table, Jozef Israëls (1882) |
The painting is now in the Van Gogh
Museum in Amsterdam and considered one of Van Gogh's masterpieces. The original
oil sketch for the painting is in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo,
Netherlands, and lithographs of the image are in collections including the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
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| Van Gogh Museum |
Thank you.
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