YORE SHOES

Vincent van Gogh is a world famous artist. He sadly didn't make any money from his paintings in his lifetime but after he died they became priceless and now sell for millions of pounds. He was a very poor man and he mainly painted the countryside, himself, flowers, his bedroom and surprisingly, lots of paintings of boots. Boots were very much the shoes of peasants where Van Gogh lived in Holland in the 1800s. This meant that Van Gogh specifically chose rugged poor boots, not new rich shoes, to paint.  He might have been trying to show others how life was hard for labour workers.

 

It was reported even that when wanting to paint boots, Van Gogh bought some boots at a flea market and had to wear them on a long and rainy walk before he felt able to paint them. Why do you think he did that? Why do you think he kept painting old shoes and boots?

 

Have you ever drawn or painted a pair of shoes or your own shoes?