Like many great artists, Vincent Van Gogh unfortunately lived a life of great poverty and despair. Throughout much of his life Van Gogh recieved no recognition for his great works of art.
Van Gogh's first great masterpiece from 1885 entitled The Potato Eaters reflects his ambition to be a "painter of peasant life". Van Gogh identified with the subjects of this painting due to his own experiences with poverty. While Van Gogh was living in Nuenen, a small village in southern Holland, he found inspiration in the everyday struggles of workmen and laborers. The Potato Eaters consists of a group of four women and one man surrounding a table eating a platter of potatoes. The figures in the painting were based on Van Gogh's many individual studies of the poverty-stricken working classes and laborers. Van Gogh says about this painting, "What I have tried to do," he wrote, "is convey the idea that those people, eating their potatoes by lamplight, have dug the earth with the very hands they put into their bowls."
Van Gogh wanted to inspire a sense of respect for the working classes and an insight into the hardships they faced on an everyday basis. The sentimental feel of the painting is emphasized by the realistic portrayal of the subjects. If the painting were idealized instead of realistic the sympathy and respect for these workers would not be as strong. The workers are shown as being normal everyday people, just eating a meal in their home. Potatoes are not an extravagant food that would be eaten by richer people, they were all these people could afford and the subjects of the painting are more than happy to be able to eat anything.The sense of sympathy and sadness for these workers is shown in the subdued earth tone color scheme of the painting.
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