Who was Van Gogh writing when he wrote : " It is a kind of painting that rather changes in character , and takes on a richness the longer you look at it . " ?
He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models , thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work : " You see , I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk , who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp , have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish , and so it speaks of manual labor and — that they have thus honestly earned their food .