“THE POTATO EATERS”

The “Potato Eaters” (1885) by Vincent Van Gogh is a realistic painting about harsh
country life. It depicts five peasants sitting around a table, eating potatoes. The colours a
re dark and gloomy and the only light source comes from an oil lamp on the ceiling, at
the centre of the panting, which sheds light on the facial expressions of four of the figur
es.
This was painted while living among the peasants and laborers in Nuenen in the Net
herlands, Van Gogh strove to depict the people and their lives truthfully. Rendering the
scene in a dull palette, he echoed the drab living conditions of the peasants and used ugl
y models to further iterate the effects manual labor had upon these workers. This effect i
s heightened by his use of loose brushstrokes to describe the faces and hands of the pea
sants as they huddle around the singular, small lantern, eating their meager meal of potat
oes.

Van Gogh wished to create his first masterpiece that could boost his reputation as a
developed artist; his goal was to paint human figures that did not appear to be awkward,
but rather existing naturally. Portraying the figures in a dark room with light from an oi
l lamp, however, proved to be a bit too extreme for his newly acquired artistic skills. Th
e outcome of all of these factors, in turn, made the painting more appreciated in the art
community then if Van Gogh had succeeded in his original task.
 “Isabel (Swinburne) and Thomas Crathorne”

Resting an elbow on the back of a damask-upholstered chair stacked with portfol

ios, books, and manuscripts, Thomas Crathorne leans forward to gaze at a drawing i
n an album that his wife displays to the viewer. The porte-crayon in her right hand
signals that she has made the drawing herself. Cotes presumably alludes to Isabel Cr
athorne's actual practice as an amateur artist, a polite skill of sufficient value to figur
e repeatedly in female portraiture of the mid to late eighteenth century, but, reading
on, the drawing is more complex than just a show of artistic skill on the part of the
lady. The drawing she shows us reproduces Francesco Bartolozzi's engraving of a co
mposition by the seventeenth-century Italian artist Guercino, Cupid Burning his Bow
and Arrow. The mythological subject is an allegory for the renunciation of love, and
its significance in the present context becomes clear when it is noted that Thomas
Crathorne died in 1764, three years before Cotes signed and dated this canvas. That
was not obvious at all. Isabel Crathorne is shown in portrait next to her deceased hu
sband, and the drawing in her lap, by her hand, shows her renunciation of love and
fidelity to her dead spouse. In addition to honoring Isabel Crathorne's virtue as a wi
dow, it boasts the consolations of art. The chair beside her, vacated by her husband
on his death, has been filled not by a new companion but by the accoutrements of h
er genteel and solitary cultural pursuits.