Think you know van Gogh? The Potato Eaters

A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885, oil on canvas, 82 x 114 cm (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

[@asaemin9427]

I love paintings with weird atmosphere on it, like weird proportions, perspective and unrealistic things combined with real things. Its just fascinates me so much i loved it more than those detailed and perfectly correct paintings.

[@houstonmuhammad843]

To me this painting is about the dignity, strength, poverty and suffering of poor peasant farmers, which Van Gogh captured masterfully.

[@rx2440]

Oh man! As a local who is often in Amsterdam's museums, I was wondering when you would do a video here again. I hope you enjoyed your time in Amsterdam and got to see the wonderful exhibition on Millet! Keep up the great work

[@DatVolt]

I love these series of elaborate analysis.. Thank you!

[@Ben-go9rk]

This is a fantastic video. So many people talk about how revolutionary Van Gogh was (and they’re correct), but it’s easy to forget the place he was coming from was not based as much in the complex philosophical ideas of the modernists that would succeed him, but rather earnestness and simplicity

[@AvengingTiki]

Great job highlighting the challenges Van Gogh was experiencing with the technical side of painting at this time. One technical aspect though that he was really starting to nail was lighting. I love the attention and accurate depiction of how that small high hanging light plays on the figures. An aspect of his paintings that eventually becomes one of the most celebrated parts of his work.

[@alahalla1]

I think this may be the first smarthistory video I've seen where Beth and Stephen suggest that the artist doesn't know how to paint properly. Interesting

[@hansolo2121]

alahalla That's because it was basically his first painting... So he was still learning. And also he was not interested in painting in a refined superficial manner at all. He wanted to convey his feelings right from the moment he started painting rather than just produce 'nice' images for decoration. Many people forget just how short his career actually was... Just imagine: five years after he painted this he was dead. Most of his famous paitings (sunflowers, starry night, self portraits etc.) were in fact painted during the last two years of his life. And he painted fast. He often painted at least one painting a day and sometimes three paintings a day! Van Gogh was like a meteor in the world of art. Whoosh and he was gone.

[@BeLoud13]

It's refreshing to see art revealing the common people, the human condition that's not rainbows and sunshine all the time, as opposed to polished works of wealthy people, kings, etc.

[@stefyguereschi]

Clear ,well explanation Van GHOGH The Best Painter👏👏

[@dumoulin11]

This is by far my least favourite painting of his, but I now have a better understanding of it. It's remarkable how his palette changed later on in his life.

[@Beatrizbulsara]

I love you guys. Seriously, I'm learning a lot about art with you, you're the best!

[@biometalguy1]

Thank you for all of the videos you made (and still make). They give us the possibility to have a deeper understanding of different paintings and artists' goals, styles, movements and so on.

[@radicalcenter9067]

Thanks for such great analysis and perspective . Great museum in a wonderful city.

[@Ash-se6gh]

Thank you so much for these videos!

[@chris54231]

For me looking at this picture I notice a few thing: 1. Family Hierarchy- every one is focused on someone except the women on the right, she is more focused on the cups that maybe represents the family as a whole, and caring for them. 2. The young child in the middle. Has an ora around her, as she has potiential/optimism/ innocents. Also her features are not a rough as the other family members as she is still being shaped as a person.

[@curiousworld7912]

I've always found this painting to be haunting. I'm not sure he didn't understand perspective or anatomy - I think it's exactly what he had in mind to create.

[@bebop54]

i agree ! and i'm so glad you wrote this statement ... there is absolutely no struggle with anatomy here ..lol

[@Sasha0927]

This reminds me of my guy Caravaggio's dark and murky bar scene. Oh my... Two of my favorite things in one shot: the Lord and a super fine guy (van Goh's dad). 😍lolol. I definitely did not "know van Gogh," but this was a very interesting portrait of him. His desire to be a peasant jumped out at me. "But a painting of peasant life should not be perfumed." 🔥🔥🔥 This has helped me understand and appreciate van Gogh much more.

[@smarthistory-art-history]

That is such a great quote!

[@Sasha0927]

@@smarthistory-art-history It really is. I don't use those fire emojis lightly, lol.

[@reginanemo640]

I loved this channel

[@ajmittendorf]

I love you guys at Smarthistory!

[@Illyrian1965]

I think this was one of his best painting so far! And probably he did all these mistakes on purpose, There are many paintiers who paint realistic and perfect but we don't talk about them!

[@seven1384]

Beautifully executed narration

[@iqragul7258]

I like the painting of potato eaters

[@KeyserTheRedBeard]

intense upload Smarthistory. I shattered that thumbs up on your video. Keep on up the brilliant work.

[@agnivabanerjee3983]

4:36 You can literally hear the shrill of a little girl calling her mamma ...

[@skypuffy715]

I think Van Gough made sure that the anatomy of the persons in the painting are awkward like the shoulders and the thick hands that is holding the cup. I grew up in place where poverty transforms everyone into creatures of ash and toil..like the the laborers will often have these crooked shoulders or body from carrying heavy weights or working out plowing the fields or their hands would be so thick of calluses that when they hold a cup it cannot even fit properly on their palms because of how stiff or hard their hands have become...as you can see the ideal human anatomy is not really possible in the real world it can change through time depending on the life that a person lives...Van Gough is not trying to achieve the ideal body figures he's trying to show what a real peasant look like disfigured body and all.

[@davidinger961]

Like the Mc ains advert we are family!

[@harryputang5352]

It seems dark but peaceful under a dim bulb as a warm family feeling. Poor but opulent 😊. Van gogh then was forced to give "brighter paintings" according to popular demand. Throughout his struggles...he painted the brightest paintings while slowly turning insane. ..

[@smaakjeks]

Although, had Gogh managed to get perspective and anatomy right, would the impression of the painting have suffered?

[@TheNokhcho1]

Van Gogh was an incredible artist! His life is a masterpiece. Although I don’t like most of his paintings, I respect his character, his power of will. P.s. the paintings of peasants are more interesting for me than the paintings of aristocracy.

[@Zaroffmom]

They remind me of turtles not humans

[@MikeSmith-sm4zz]

I just don’t see the fascination with Van Gogh. His paintings are a distant cry to Raphael or Davinci

[@smarthistory-art-history]

It is interesting to imagine how the art of Rapheal would have been changed had he lived during the industrial revolution when van Gogh lived. If he had been a product of the late 19th century.

[@G12GilbertProduction]

Peasant life isn't being perfumed, indeed, for the vegans and middle-class workers moral equality fighters no meaning in this Gogh Senior statement.

[@bebop54]

very nice upload ...wonderful 'speak'....thank you .... but "struggle with anatomy" ? ??? ....no way ....this work was waaaaay ahead of its' time ... like robert crumb with clothes on ...lol

[@cokonutraw8800]

What i feel lost in most analyses of The Potato Eaters is that Van Gogh captured the potato itself 🥔 on first glance, the painting looks as though it has been dug out of the dirt, it (as well as the figures within) longs to be washed, to be scrubbed. In the aesthetic metric of things, the painting (much like the potato) is ugly; and, it’s in that study of ugliness that Van Gogh sets before us - not sunflowers 🌻 - but potatoes, the runted cousin of the vegetable family, lacking in the beauty & harmony of its’ better regarded peers (such as ripe corn 🌽 or a red ripe tomato 🍅); for what is a potato but knotted, disgusting, filthy, disjointed, unspectacular, gangling in dimension, repulsive to perspective. This painting IS a potato.