‘Potato Eaters’…Controversial Artwork at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum

Iconic 19th-century artist Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)
Iconic 19th-century artist Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)
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‘Potato Eaters’…Controversial Artwork at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum

Iconic 19th-century artist Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)
Iconic 19th-century artist Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)

The Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh is more famous for his cheerful paintings – his bright and light-flooded southern French landscapes. But now for the first time, Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum is devoting an exhibition exclusively to his early depiction of peasant life, full of darkness but also admiration.

"The Potato Eaters" is one of the first masterpieces by Van Gogh and without a doubt the artist's biggest "failure," at least according to its critics at the time. It depicts five people sitting in a cramped kitchen having dinner, their faces tired and distorted – bulbous noses, bony gnarled hands. The scene is dark and gloomy, according to the German News Agency.

About 50 paintings, sketches, drawings and letters will be on display from October 8, telling the story of the painting – a "story of ambition and perseverance," the director of the museum, Emily Gordenker, said. "The painting was never sold and never exhibited during Van Gogh's lifetime. Today, however, it is world-famous and considered a key work in the painter's development," she said.

Vincent Van Gogh painted "De aardappeleters" (potato eaters) in 1885 during a turbulent period he spent with his parents in Nuenen, in the southeast of the Netherlands. He made numerous studies and sketches for it.

It's one of Van Gogh's "most thought-out paintings," said Bregje Gerritse, curator of the museum. The painter himself described it as a "master's test" and, according to the curator, wanted to make his breakthrough with it. But the painting failed. Van Gogh received harsh criticism for this work, especially because of its use of gloomy colors and the distorted depiction of people's faces.

To bring the painting to life, the museum has now recreated the scene with a life-size, walk-in model for its spotlight exhibition.

"The Potato Eaters: Mistake or Masterpiece?" Van Gogh wanted to depict the harsh reality of peasant life, a life he himself admired. He deliberately showed the characters with coarse faces and bony hands worn from labor, Gerritse said. "Van Gogh wanted to show the peasants in all their roughness."



Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
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Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)

More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne's city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.

Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.

Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne's biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.

Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne's historic center.

As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station.

It also includes three bridges across the Rhine, among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne's central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself.

Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.

The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.