​In the 19th century, absinth was a popular drink with many, including artists like van Gogh.

The still life in Van Gogh's painting shows a solitary glass of absinth on a café table and a bottle of water. Van Gogh combines this with a view through the window. The chosen vantage point makes it feel as though you are yourself sitting at the cafe table where the painter sat.

​After months of observing the local peasants' daily routines, van Gogh depicted a family gathered around the table for a modest dinner of the potatoes grown in their own garden. He chose his colors purposefully to connect his sitters with the earth that sustained them. The stark interior, their rough hands, and weather-beaten faces were the legacy of their life of labor.

Neither sentimental nor romantic, The Potato Eaters expressed the compassionate sincerity of Vincent's aims in art.

​Vincent van Gogh's Sprig of Flowering Almond Blossom in a Glass is an oil on canvas.

He painted a sprig of an almond branch, which he forced into early flowering in a glass of water. The irregular pattern of the little branch, covered with pale, translucent blooms, gave him a subject that recalled the depiction of flowers in Japanese prints. The simple division of the silvery, violet background with a scarlet band pays tribute to the Japanese aesthetic.