The shapes of the painting are square, rectangles, and also people's hands are depicted in rough angular shapes. By this element of the hands, Van Gogh might have wanted to show the hard labor of the peasants. The light of the oil lamp falls on the table and on people's faces surrounding it while the other parts of the room remain dark. It makes a strong contrast between lightness and darkness in the painting. The space in the foreground and middle ground, including the people and the table, is small. However, with this partition behind the people in the background, the painter extends the space in the painting making sense of continuation of the room. The texture of the painting is smooth as the painter applied paint in thin layers with a brush. .
In my opinion, the main focus of the painting is dish of the potatoes. Vincent achieved this with the light of the lamp that falls on the potatoes and makes them almost as bright as the lamp's light itself. By making the potatoes the focus of the painting, Van Gogh might want to show that despite the hard labor of the peasants, the potatoes were the only food that they had. This piece is presented in style of Realism that Van Gogh used as an amateur painter. Here, he starts to create his special style of painting regarding the contrast between light and shadow. In future paintings, this contrast will be between color of the outlines around the objects and color of the objects themselves. His budding technique was the case that he made sketch first and then began using paint. .
The painting "Starry Night" is another of Van Gogh's most famous works completed in 1889, four years after "The Potato Eaters" was made. This painting depicts the night sky filled with swirling clouds, an unusual form of shinning stars, and a yellow, bright moon. Below the sky, there is a small town with few buildings and, behind them, are blue, snowy mountains.
