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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)
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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."

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‘More and Faster’: UN Calls to Shrink Buildings’ Carbon Footprint

Snow capped mountains are seen behind the downtown Los Angeles skyline, California, US, March 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Snow capped mountains are seen behind the downtown Los Angeles skyline, California, US, March 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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‘More and Faster’: UN Calls to Shrink Buildings’ Carbon Footprint

Snow capped mountains are seen behind the downtown Los Angeles skyline, California, US, March 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Snow capped mountains are seen behind the downtown Los Angeles skyline, California, US, March 7, 2025. (Reuters)

Countries must move rapidly to slash CO2 emissions from homes, offices, shops and other buildings -- a sector that accounts for a third of global greenhouse gas pollution, the United Nations said Monday.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the building sector rose around five percent in the last decade when they should have fallen 28 percent, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

It said emissions had plateaued since 2023 as climate policies began to have an impact, particularly green building standards, the use of renewable energy and electrified heating and cooling.

But the building sector still consumes 32 percent of the world's energy and contributes 34 percent of CO2 emissions, the report found.

"The buildings where we work, shop and live account for a third of global emissions and a third of global waste," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.

"The good news is that government actions are working. But we must do more and do it faster."

She called on nations to include targets to "rapidly cut emissions from buildings and construction" in their climate plans.

The report said that while most of the countries that signed up to the 2015 Paris climate deal -- nearly 200 have signed -- mention the sector, so far only 19 countries have sufficiently detailed goals in their national carbon cutting plans.

The report said that as of 2023, important metrics like energy-related emissions and the adoption of renewable energy "remain well below required progress rates".

That means that countries, businesses and homeowners now need to dramatically pick up the pace to meet the 2030 emissions reduction targets.

- 'Critical challenge' -

Direct and indirect CO2 emissions will now need to fall more than 10 percent per year, more than double the originally envisaged pace.

The rollout of renewables is a similar story.

The share of renewables like solar and wind in final energy consumption rose by only 4.5 percentage points since 2015, well behind the goal of nearly 18 percentage points.

That now needs to accelerate by a factor of seven to meet this decade's goal of tripling renewable energy use worldwide, UNEP said.

The report urged countries to accelerate the roll-out of renewable technologies and increase the share of renewables in the final energy mix to 46 percent by 2030 -- a rise of around 18 percent.

It also called on policymakers to increase energy efficiency retrofits to include better design, insulation and the use of renewables and heat pumps.

More work also needs to be done to improve the sustainability of materials like steel and cement, whose manufacture accounts for nearly a fifth of all emissions from the building sector.

But the report did say that circular construction practices were increasing in some areas, with recycled materials accounting for 18 percent of construction inputs in Europe.

The authors urged all major greenhouse gas emitters to take action by introducing zero-carbon building energy codes by 2028, and called on other countries to create and tighten their regulations within the next 10 years.

The report highlighted positive national policies from China, France, Germany, Mexico and South Africa among others.

But it said financing remained a "critical challenge".

In 2023, it found that global investment in energy efficiency in buildings fell seven percent from a year earlier to $270 billion, driven by higher borrowing costs and the winding back of government support programs, notably in Europe.

Those investments now need to double -- to $522 billion -- by 2030, it said.