From the Gallery of Sustainability, second series:

Shoes (sustainability in Van Gogh):

(26.5.2022) Yesterday I strolled around in the city. Oh, how my feet do hurt today. While strolling around I had mused about a lot of things. About a failed friendship in my youth, for example. About the changes the pandemic brought about, as far as the face of the city is concerned. Oh, and the consumer sentiment doesn’t seem to be good. 70% discount on everything (designer fashion). On the other hand a street artist with a laptop. Beggers have largely disappeared, as it seems (new rules). And in one neighborhood I spotted a new second hand store (clothes as well as bikes), ›use it twice‹ seems to be the motto. Oh, how I do love second hand stores!
Today I am thinking about shoes. What about to buy new ones in a second hand store? Old ones seem to be weared out. And now we are at the heart of the matter: are they still good enough to give them away, to throw them into a beforementioned recycling bin (with the postcard shot of the Matterhorn on it, to enhance the sublime feeling of giving one’s old shoes away)?
Could one imagine Vincent van Gogh throwing a pair of old shoes into a recycling bin? Why not? He is said to have bought a pair of shoes at a flea market (with intention to paint them, as it seems, but he had to further wear them out, apparently, for them to match his pre-conceived idea of old shoes – compare my theses on still lifes, below). And for one of his shoe still lifes he did apparently re-use a canvas. It showed a view of his brother’s apartment, but he did repaint that view, hailing the motto of ›use it twice‹.
If Vincent van Gogh indeed had bought a pair of shoes at a Parisian flee market, it is perhaps not very likely that these shoes are peasant shoes indeed. But the philosopher’s views on art (in this case: Martin Heidegger’s views) never have interested me much. What is interesting in the still life that I am showing here, is that we are meant to look at a sole, as well as at the upper part of one shoe, and one could indeed become a philosopher, thinking about that. If our reality only does float on an abyss of nothingness, as one might say, it might still be good to have robust soles. And if we can rely on that, we can also turn our eyes to other inner-wordly things, such as the upper part, seen by people, and also by the walking person himself. Be it as it may, this still life of 1887 enriches our critical discourse on sustainability: it raises the question of how Vincent van Gogh might have thought about the concept of sustainability. He does not tell us. But he does show us pairs of old shoes. And his actions speak louder than words: in that he did, occasionally, re-use a canvas, to do exactly that. Showing us pairs of old, perhaps even Parisian, shoes. Which is inspiring me to say: no, Vincent van Gogh would not have thrown his shoes away, or thrown them into a recycling bin. He would have had them fixed (paying with a painting for that). And he would have used his shoes as long as possible.

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