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Posted by Nopperabo on 04-14-2022 at01:38:

  Shoe Loss Significance in Art

Hi all,

Given the subject has come up a few times (and I have had to explain it a few times as well), I thought it might be useful to have a thread covering what shoe loss actually SIGNIFIES in art through the ages, as it will make a lot of art easier to understand (as well as possibly give people a few more ideas of where to look.) I'm leaving out the Cinderella stuff, since it is so well known. Here is what I know.

In Greco-Roman art, being shown with a single shoe (or more accurately, single sandal), symbolized "Death or Glory", the concept of a war or act where defeat was not an option. This comes from the myth of Jason (who famously lost a sandal helping an old lady cross a stream, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that a man with one sandal would come to one day rule Thessaly).

In early Jewish culture (and for a time Christian as well) shoes often symbolized ownership. At that time when a man married a woman, the father would hand one of his daughters shoes to the new husband who would then tap the bride on the head with it, to symbolize the transfer of ownership. This later evolved in the tradition of the bride throwing her right shoe into the crowd and whoever caught it was the next to marry (now done with the bouquet), to the custom of pelting the married couple with old shoes, to the modern one of tying old shoes to the rear bumper of the married couples car.

There was also a long held (and still held by some Orthodox Jews) that, when a woman wants to get out of marrying her dead husbands brother (which is required by law if the man left no son), the couple will go to a rabbi with the man wearing a special extra large shoe on his right foot. In front of the rabbi the woman will then pull the shoe off. If the man relinquishes ownership of the shoe, he relinquishes ownership of the woman, and she is free to marry whoever she chooses.

In the Rococo period, shoe loss by a woman in a picture was often considered a sign of a desire to have a romantic fling. Probably the most common examples of this are Fragonard's The Swing and the French one of the woman on the bridge having her shoe retrieved by a young man from the river below.

In the colonial period, showing a child with one shoe on and one off was meant to show innocence. In particular it was used to show a return to a natural state, and, as such was used as a sort of code in colonial portraits to show that the child being pictured had died young, and the portrait was posthumous.

This concept transferred over to the days of early photography. If you see an old photograph of an apparently sleeping child (or even one that just looks a little dull). with one shoe on, the child in the picture is actually probably deceased (the Victorians were quite comfortable taking photos of, and with their dead relatives.). Often, it will be a post-autopsy photo.

In 1930-50's art (especially "pulp fiction illustrations and covers) showing a woman removing her shoes symbolized her getting comfortable (and possibly preparing for a night of passion). Shoe LOSS often indicated danger (by making the now one heeled woman more vulnerable.)

That pretty much covers everything I know.

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Posted by Nopperabo on 04-14-2022 at03:36:

 

Remembered a few more

in Islamic tradition, being seen in one shoe is considered to be a sign of sloppiness and unkemptness, and the Koran specifically prohibits it (then again, I have also seem pieces that claim that the rise in one shoe wearing is predicted in the Koran, so I'm not sure which is correct.)

St. Wilgefortis is sometimes depicted with one shoe due to the legend of the Saint and the Fiddler (Basically the legend goes that an impoverished fiddler, having no other gift to offer at a shrine to St. Wilgefortis, played his fiddle in front of the statue. The statue then kicked off one of it's golden shoes toward the fiddler in reward. The fiddler then went to sell the gold shoe so he could buy some food, but was caught by the authorities, who accused him of stealing it from the shrine. When the man proclaimed his innocence, and told his tale, the authorities did not believe him and dragged him back to the shrine to prove he was lying. When they got there, the fiddler again played for the statue, and the statue kicked off it's other golden shoe in front of all assembled, thus proving the man' innocence.)

The Taoist immortal Lan Caihe is usually depicted with one shoe and one bare foot, and is gender ambiguous.

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Posted by Nopperabo on 04-24-2022 at13:37:

 

Remembered I left out a BIG one, the fact that, traditionally, walking with one shoe on and one shoe off is EXTREMELY bad luck. In fact, more bad luck than breaking a mirror (that gets you seven years of bad luck, but walking with one shoe on and one off is supposed to get you a year of bad luck PER STEP).

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Posted by hunter77721 on 04-24-2022 at18:44:

 

"and the French one of the woman on the bridge having her shoe retrieved by a young man from the river below."

I am not familiar with this painting, can you give me a hint on how to find it online?

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Posted by Nopperabo on 04-24-2022 at23:02:

 

quote:

Originally posted by hunter77721 "and the French one of the woman on the bridge having her shoe retrieved by a young man from the river below." I am not familiar with this painting, can you give me a hint on how to find it online?

At the moment, I can't, for the simple reason that I don't know what it's called either! But I see it fairly often in the form of things like china figurines and needlepoints, so the next time I see one, I can let you know.

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Posted by hunter77721 on 04-25-2022 at15:15:

 

Thank You. I also will try to look for it.