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The most prominent features which would set the stage forlater works by Van Gogh are reflected on these paintings.His successful use of lighting on the painting caused thework an important work of art created during that period.Van Gogh says the following for this painting: “While drawingthe people who stretch their hands and eat potatoes, Iwanted to emphasize that those hands were also the handsthat cultivated the soil where the potatoes grew”.The fact that the 5 figures in the painting look irrelevantto each other, and that their looks do not meet, is considereda lacking in the composition. However, this featureadds a special kind of calm and a silent melancholy tothe painting. For Van Gogh, painting was a special environmentof expression, and notions such as beauty andugliness were not the segments of a general perception,but an artist’s personal criteria. Rappard, who criticisedthe painting saying “Certainly, you will agree as well thatsuch a work will never be taken seriously. Thanks to God,though, that you do have the talent to do much better”,put an end to their friendship. After his father’s death onMarch 26, 1885, the socieal problems that concerned himwere replaced by mere artistic worries, and the theme forhis works changed greatly.Improved His Skills in the ArtisticallyRich Environment of ParisWhen van Gogh arrived at the Anvers Harbour at the endof November 1885, “The Potato Eaters” was in his bag. Hestayed there for a short while before he moved to Paris,renting a small attic, again by the help of Theo. He boughtat the antique dealers at the harbour the wooden Japaneseimprints which would influence his later works of art aswell, at an inexpensive prise. In those years, the Japanesepavillions had triggered a great wave of excitement in theParisian art environment. It is also known that van Goghcoppied a lot from those Japanese imprints. (the bloomedplum tree” is one of the paintings he drew under the Japaneseinfluence. He later quite frequently used the woodenJapanese imprints in his room as backgrounds for his portraits.In the meantime, he also saw the paintings by Rubens,a great master of the Baroque art, and influenced byhim, began to use lighter colors in his own paintings.After his brother Theo came to Paris at the beginning ofMarch 1886, they lived in the same flat for 2 years. Duringthis period, he painted in Louvr and in Fernand Cormon’sworkshop at the Fine Arts Academy. After getting to knowToulouse Loutrec, Bernand, Gauguin, C.Pisarro, Signac, hewas influenced by them, and began to paint outdoors,stopping to work in workshops. In a short while, Vincentbecame close friends with these painters, and began tospend a certain amount of his time in the small cafes andcheap restaurants in Montmartre. Their aim was to form ahuge commune of artists where everybody could work insolidarity. Using brighter and purer colors in Paris comparedto his older paintings, Van Gogh applied these colors on thecanvas with broken strokes which look like curled stripes.An All Night Long Open Cafe40