Puppy Zwolle
*mind makes a grinding noise* It actually doesn't. This may look like an impressionist painting but when it was made by van Gogh it wasn't intended as one. It wasn't until later he got acquainted with impressionist art and became the colorful painter we all know as a true impressionist. In a sense this is a pre-impressionist painting. It represents the coming of impressionisme.

Quixoticelixer
It doesn't. Van Gogh was never an Impressionist. He never showed with them, and if anything, we'd call him a Post-Impressionist... if you're really bent on grouping him under an umbrella term. "The Potato Eaters" is more of a Realist piece. He created it when he first arrived to France, and it's actually quite behind the times (and more like a Courbet might be). Van Gogh espoused a lot of artistic theories when he first came to France, ergo many of his paintings within even a few months look starkly different from one another. He did dapple in "impressionistic brushstrokes", but this certainly isn't it. The Impressionists were concerned with happy, modern life - they would NEVER show a miserable scene like an impoverished family who can only afford potatoes. The Impressionists weren't out to make political statements. This work isn't at all Impressionistic. The looser brushstrokes are, again, reminiscient of Courbet - they are rougher to match the subject matter. The Impressionists, also, painted bright outdoor scenes, because they were interested in the effects of LIGHT. This clearly isn't. Van Gogh was not at all an Impressionist!

Lady October
He was one of the first impressionist artists. Him and Monet. Because he leaves impressions in his art. You can see all the little brush strokes.

helene
As others have said, it really doesn't. It is not an impressionist painting in any way, except possibly that it came into being at a time when Impressionist painters were having quite a bit of influence---just not on this particular painting. You could read volumes about Impressionist color theory, but briefly, the Impressionists used color in an almost scientific way, typically with brushstrokes of complementary colors placed side by side, to create vibrations on the surface of the painting. Their aim was realism; to more accurately portray light and shadow by activating the very atmosphere around their subject matter with color. By contrast, "The Potato Eaters" has an extremely limited palette. It is much more about form than color. The Post-Impressionists built on the color experiences of the Impressionists, but without realism as their ultimate goal. They were not quite to the point of abstraction yet, but they were beginning to consider paintings more in terms of their abstract elements, and the use of color to express a concept, rather than to illustrate a reality. This painting isn't even in the Post-Impressionist category. Van Gogh was still teaching himself to draw and paint at this point in time. He really came into his own a year or two after this.

celticreject
Van Gogh was NOT an impressionist, he was a POST IMPRESSIONIST. Ignore all the ignorami above. I don't believe that this painting does represent impressionist art at all. Impressionism is just that, it is creating an impression. This painting is from about 1885 or something. His late work was a little more impressionistic however.