After several personal disappointments, including the break-up of his relationship with Casina (Sien) Hoornik, with whom he had been living for a year, Van Gogh decides to move to Drente, a region popular with artists at the time. But after only two months there he is once again overcome by feelings of despair at his lack of recognition as an artist. Lonely and discouraged, he is forced to return once more to his parents' home, now in Nuenen.
He throws himself into his work, and it is during this period that his paintings and drawings take on a new confidence and coherence that they had previously lacked. He approaches drawing from a new angle, aiming to depict, "not the hand but the gesture, not a...face but the expression".
One of his most important early works, The Potato Eaters, was produced during this period, and the preliminary sketches for this work are examined here in depth, along with nearly 300 other reproductions of his drawings, 140 of which are in full color. As with Volume 1, the text by Sjraar van Heugten examines Van Gogh's life and the development of his work during the period, and provides a detailed technical analysis of each drawing.
