Focus on this artwork and analyze the Influence of the Hague School.
Van Gogh is often associated in people's minds with the Post-Impressionist movement, but in fact his artistic roots lay much closer to home in the artists of the Hague School such as Anton Mauve and Jozef Israëls.
In a letter to his brother Theo written mid-June 1884, Vincent remarks:When I hear you talk about a lot of new names, it's not always possible for me to understand when I've seen absolutely nothing by them. And from what you said about 'Impressionism', I’ve grasped that it's something different from what I thought it was, but it's still not entirely clear to me what one should understand by it.
But for my part, I find so tremendously much in Israëls, for instance, that I'm not particularly curious about or eager for something different or newer.
Before Vincent painted The Potato Eaters, Israëls had already treated the same subject in his A Peasant Family at the Table and, judging from a comment in a letter to Theo 11 March 1882, Vincent had seen this (or at least a variation of it) and had been inspired to produce his own version of it. Compositionally, the two are very similar: in both paintings the composition of the painting is centered by a figure whose back is turned to the viewer. 
As well as an interest gained by A Peasant Family at the Table, Vincent had an appreciation for a simpler lifestyle. Vincent was known to disregard the finer things, once writing in a letter to his brother Theo:When I receive money, even if I've fasted, isn't for food, but is even stronger for painting [...] meanwhile the lifeline I cling to is my breakfast with the people where I live, and a cup of coffee and bread in the cremerie in the evening...
Van Gogh seemed to emotionally identify with the middle class, although he was from a family who were quite well-off. The subject was that of the harsh reality of life in the working class. He also simply admired the sustainability of the potato, or aardappel in Dutch. Aardappel literally translates to "earth apple," which paints an idea of a simpler, hearty lifestyle.
Theo Hague School Anton Mauve Post-Impressionist movement Jozef Israëls