‘Peasant gold’: A taste of van Gogh’s humble potatoes

‘Peasant gold’: A taste of van Gogh’s humble potatoes

An exhibition in the Netherlands explores Vincent van Gogh’s artistic affinity for the humble potato. Before moving to Paris and becoming enamored with flowers — a more vibrant subject for which there was, coincidentally, a larger market — van Gogh made spuds a focal point of his early peasant studies, five of which are on display at the Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch. A lithograph of depicts peasants whose faces are themselves “someth…