Explore the Composition of this artwork.
During March and the beginning of April 1885, Van Gogh sketched studies for the painting and corresponded with his brother Theo, who was not impressed with his current work nor the sketches Van Gogh sent him in Paris. He began working on The Potato Eaters while living with his parents in Nuenen, a rural town which was home to many farmers, labourers and weavers. He worked on the painting from 13 April until the beginning of May, when it was mostly done except for minor changes that he made with a small brush later the same year.Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work.Writing to his sister Willemina two years later in Paris, Van Gogh still considered The Potato Eaters his most successful painting: "What I think about my own work is that the painting of the peasants eating potatoes that I did in Nuenen is after all the best thing I did". However, the work was criticized by his friend Anthon van Rappard soon after it was painted. This was a blow to Van Gogh's confidence as an emerging artist, and he wrote back to his friend, "you... had no right to condemn my work in the way you did" (July 1885), and later, "I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it." (August 1885).Vincent Van Gogh is known to have admired the Belgian painter Charles de Groux and in particular his work The blessing before supper. De Groux's work is a solemn depiction of a peasant family saying grace before supper. The painting was closely linked to Christian representations of the Last Supper. Van Gogh's The Potato Eaters was inspired by this work of de Groux and similar religious connotations can be identified in Van Gogh's work.
Last Supper Nuenen Anthon van Rappard Theo Willemina Charles de Groux