Mind travel with shoes

Before we start...a bit of creation !

Ma Bohème

Written by Arthur Rimbaud at the age of 16 (in 1870), Ma Bohème evokes one or several of his runaways. He wanted to escape a stifling environment and conformity. It's a light sonnet of traditional form, full of fantasies, of youth which illustrate well Rimbaud's teenage wanderings.

Happy and carefree wandering dominates the poem with an idea of joy since this journey has no goal, no constraint, so the traveller is carefree. One has the impression that he blends into nature.

The title evokes a journey without a precise itinerary, a wandering by chance and fantasy. It's a question of his life and individualizes this journey. The word "bohemian" establishes a link with literary world. 

A little history

Indeed, if we refer to French literary history, "bohemia" is a dimension of literary sociality that strongly asserts itself around 1845. It's defined by a way of life that is rebellious to social constraints, free, communal, marginal and artistic. 

The term "literary bohemia" appear shortly after the publication of "Un Prince de la Bohème" (1840), in which Balzac depicts the atypical lifestyle of a gilded youth embodied by the Count of The Palferine. The fact remains that Balzac's vision is that of an aristocratic bohemia that is part of dandyism, whereas the bohemia that emerges brings together a population of young people from the lower classes of society. 

Claiming equal rights, such as the right to publish their artworks, this overpopulated generation nevertheless found itself caught between its aspirations and a society that was reluctant to welcome it. For the most disadvantaged, downgrading and precariousness will be the irremediable results of this situation and this comabt.

The title "La Bohème" could allude to the carefree and free life of artists, but this is not the case. His bohemian life is a wandering in nature, in contrast to the urban sedentary life of Parisian artists.

Shoes

This theme of wandering and travelling is also present in the field of painting, as for example the painting Shoes (1886) by Vincent Van Gogh. Personally, I thought of this work when I read the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, because he talks about his "battered shoes", and I think that represents them well in image.

These are old abandoned shoes. The laces are untied, undone. They form a strange, open loop. The signature, red and underlined, is at the top left, while the place usually reserved for the signature is occupied by the loop, as if this empty and open shoelace were the signature. These laces are also a trap, drawing the very shape of the trap into which those who think it is a pair fall. Indeed, to go together, two shoes must be a pair. This is not the case with Van Gogh's shoes, neither the old shoes with laces, nor the others.

Not only are they removed from the foot, detached, neglected, untied, but they are also mismatched in some way. They don't have the same size or the same orientation. At worst, they are unusable, at best, they are limping. 

The boots are placed on a brown ground, but this ground is not earth. This ground is devoid of foundation, of origin. This can mean that the boots find no place to settle. They float. They lack a contact with the surface. We come back to the wandering situation of the poet we were talking about. 

The power of art

Finally, despite his poverty and miserable condition, Rimbaud's poet continues on his way, guided by the path of art. The same can be said of Van Gogh, who paints shoes that are all damaged but which symbolise life and the will to move forward despite the difficulty. The love for art (whether poetry or painting), allows the creation of these masterpieces. 

Finally, artists do not particularly need to find complex subjects to create. Arthur Rimbaud uses the simple night walk as an excuse to listen to the Muse of poetry, and Van Gogh paints old shoes with holes in them. Perhaps it is in the things that seem simplest and most everyday at first sight that the great sources of inspiration are found. What do you think? Do you feel inspired? Maybe you'll see the world differently after reading this article; and I hope you'll look at and appreciate everything better (even your shoes with holes in them!) :)

Camille