Pair of Shoes, A

Van Gogh's study of a pair of shoes from 1887, now in the Baltimore Museum of Art, belongs to a celebrated series of shoe still lifes that the philosopher Martin Heidegger famously analyzed in his essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art.' Heidegger saw in the boots a revelation of peasant world, of earthy labor, though scholars have subsequently debated whether these were Van Gogh's own boots rather than peasant boots. Whatever their origin, the shoes are treated with remarkable seriousness — worn, used, bearing the marks of a life lived within them — as objects that carry the weight of human experience. The Baltimore Museum holds this as one of its most discussed Van Gogh works.

The pair of shoes is arranged on a flat surface, their worn, deformed shapes rendered with close observation of every crease, lace-hole, and mark of use. Van Gogh's dark palette is appropriate to worn leather, the shoes modeled with careful tonal attention. The paint surface has the material presence that makes the shoes feel genuinely worn.