KMT 2019 nr 1 Download PDF

His Highness the Shoe – the study about its cultural importance

Cite: , Jego wysokość But – rzecz o kulturowym znaczeniu, "Kultura - Media - Teologia", 2019( 36) nr 1, s. 51-76.

DOI: 10.21697/kmt.36.3

The study is an attempt to classify cultural meanings of footwear, secondly it has to show the long duration of these meanings, supplemented with additional content resulting from historical and cultural conditions. The text has been divided into two parts. The first is the presentation of the subject as an object of museum values, including collecting archaeological and historical items and contemporary gathering gadgets classified as significant because of the price, designer or a known owner (celebrities). This section will be also discussed the historical importance of the shoes, as an expensive craft product determining the social status of the owner as well as the primary symbolic content of the shoes in Old Masters painting relevant to the text of the Holy Scripture (shoe – the symbol of the presence of God). The second part covers the overview of the different uses of shoes or their image in contemporary visual arts with an analysis of their symbolism in relation to the historically and culturally accepted meanings over the centuries. Selected works of art (paintings, sculptures, installations and artistic advertising) have been grouped in terms of the dominant symbolic meaning in them shoes, it is: shoe as an image of death and vanitas, shoe as the object of desire (fetish and sex symbol). A conclusion of the text includes the interpretation of the meaning of the symbolic selected images of advertising by Peter Lippmann, which highlights the long duration of the meanings granted objects and the fact that it is not possible – the proposed by some – approach selective to these meanings.

About authors

Małgorzata Wrześniak

ORCID: 0000-0001-7781-2179