A Pair of Leather Clogs

A Pair of Leather Clogs, from the asylum at Saint-Rémy in 1889, returns Van Gogh to one of the objects most deeply embedded in his personal iconography: the worn working footwear that he had painted repeatedly since Nuenen as a symbol of the peasant labour he admired. Martin Heidegger's famous 1935 meditation 'The Origin of the Work of Art' used Van Gogh's shoe paintings as his central example of how art discloses the being of equipment — how a painting of worn boots reveals not just an object but an entire world of labour, earth, and peasant existence. Van Gogh's own motivation was less philosophical than deeply felt: he identified with working people, had worn out his shoes in service of others, and painted shoes as objects that bore the marks of a life actually lived. The asylum context gives these clogs an additional dimension: objects of ordinary daily life, of freedom of movement, painted by a man who was temporarily deprived of the ability to go where he chose. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

The two clogs are arranged simply — not artfully posed but placed as they might actually be left, retaining the imprint of use and wear. Van Gogh renders the leather's surface with attention to its texture and the way light catches worn patches, treating the humble objects with the same seriousness he would give a portrait.