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Vincent van Gogh - The Potato Eaters 1885. Van Gogh viewed the Potato Eaters as a kind of showpiece, for which
he deliberately chose a difficult composition to prove he was on his way to becoming a good figure painter. He wanted
the painting to express the idea that these people ‘have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting
in the dish, (…) and that they have thus honestly earned their food,’ he wrote on 30 April 1885 to his brother Theo. Van
Gogh emphasized the harsh reality by exaggerating it. - ArtsViewer.com