Shoes by Vincent Van Gogh
The philosopher Martin Heidegger saw the painting on exhibition in Amsterdam in 1930 and later wrote about it:
"From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrate the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field." - Martin Heidegger
"Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream." - Vincent Van Gogh
We used to call it boots! My father used to wear them. He was a mining worker. It was a gold mining company. An underground mines, many of them around in a ten square miles area. In a rugged pant and shirt, with this boots on, he used to like a rock! To bear the difficulties of the job, for the up bringing of the family. Scores of them. This painting brings back the memories of years of toil, ultimately proving to be worth it! In that way it seems like a dedication to all those miners who toiled.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anbazhagan!
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