The Potato-eaters

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The Potato Eaters (Dutch: De Aardappeleters) is a painting by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh which he painted in April 1885 while he was in Nuenen,the Netherlands. It is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The version at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo is a preliminary oil sketch, and he also made a version as a lithograph. In 1885 van Gogh made several versions of the Potato Eaters.

During March and the beginning of April 1885 he sketched studies for the painting, and corresponded with his brother Theo, who was not impressed with his current work and the sketches Van Gogh sent him in Paris. He worked on the painting from April 13 until the beginning of May, when it was mostly done except for minor changes which 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:

• "You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why."

The grey color stands out the poverty of the people that are eating at the table. The creation of this color is not owed by the union of black and white but from the union of other colors.