Читать книгу The Art of the Shoe - Marie-Josèphe Bossan - Страница 7

The earliest written evidence of shoes is considered to be that found in the Bible, although research remains to be done with Chinese, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian texts.

As a rule, Biblical characters wear sandals, whether they are God’s chosen ones (the Hebrews), their allies, or enemies, which affirms the Near Eastern origin of this footwear type from earliest antiquity. The Old Testament rarely mentions the design and decoration of the sandal. Apart from its role as an invaluable aid to walking, which is mainly an issue concerning the lives of the Saints, the sandal plays an important symbolic role. Biblical shoe symbolism can be analyzed in its different contexts, which include the removal of shoes in holy places, the shoe in military expeditions, legal actions, and everyday rituals, as well as the shoe as an accessory of seduction when dressing a female foot.

In the most famous example of removing one’s shoes in a holy place, the vision of the burning bush, God orders Moses to take off his shoes: “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground” (The Pentateuch, Exodus, III, 5).

The situation repeats itself when the Hebrews come upon the entrance to the Promised Land, as recorded in the Book of Joshua: “And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, ‘Are You for us or for our adversaries?’ So He said, ‘No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, ‘What does my Lord say to His servant?’ Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy’” (Joshua, 5:13–15).

The order given to Joshua is identical to that given to Moses. Shoes figure in another story from Joshua. The kings, finding themselves beyond the river Jordan, formed a coalition to fight against Joshua and Israel, but the Gibeonites wanted to ally themselves with Israel at any price. So the Gibeonites planned a ruse that would make Israel think they came from a distant land:

“And they took old sacks on their donkeys, old wineskins torn and mended, old and patched sandals on their feet, and old garments on themselves” (Joshua 9:3). Dressed in this fashion they went to find Joshua, who asked them, “Who are you, and where do you come from?” They replied, “From a very far country your servants have come… And these wineskins which we filled were new, and see, they are torn; and these our garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey” (Joshua, 9:5, 8, 13).

These old sandals contrast with the ones mentioned in Moses’ last sermon when he says to his people: “And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet” (Deuteronomy, 29:5).

The Old Testament mentions footwear in a number of military contexts. The wars against the Philistines are the setting for the Books of Samuel. The rich iconography of the famous battle of David and Goliath, pointing to a much later date than the event itself, which took place between 1010 and 970 BC, usually shows the Philistine giant dressed in sandals and leg armor, but only the leg armor is mentioned in the Bible: “He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders” (Samuel, 17:5–6).

The sandal is part of the war imagery evoked in David’s exhortations to Solomon, when the king reminds his son that his servant Joab had murdered two of Israel’s army commanders: “And he shed the blood of war in peacetime, and put the blood of war on his belt that was around his waist, and on his sandals that were on his feet” (Kings, 2:5). And the messianic prophet Isaiah evokes the sandal when speaking of a military threat from a distant nation: “No one will be weary or stumble among them, No one will slumber or sleep; Nor will the belt on their loins be loosed, Nor the strap of their sandals be broken; Whose arrows are sharp, And all their bows bent” (Isaiah, 5:27–28). Shoes and the lack thereof also figure prominently in Isaiah’s prophesy of Egypt’s defeat against Assyria, its ancient rival for domination over the Near East: “In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it, at the same time the Lord spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, ‘Go, and remove the sackcloth from your body, and take your sandals off your feet.’ And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. Then the Lord said, ‘Just as My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. Then they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation and Egypt their glory’” (Isaiah, 20:1–5).

To cast or set down ones shoe in a place symbolized occupancy. In an image reminiscent of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen trampling his enemies underfoot, Psalms 60 and 108 celebrate preparations for a military expedition against Edam: “Moab is My wash pot; Over Edom I will cast My shoe; Philistia, shout in triumph because of Me.” “Through God we will do valiantly, For it is He who shall tread down our enemies” (Psalm, 60:8; 12; Psalm, 108:9:13). In the kingdom of Israel, to tag a field with ones foot or to leave ones sandal there symbolized legal ownership. The fundamental text on this tradition is in the Book of Ruth: “Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging, to confirm anything: one man took off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was a confirmation in Israel. Therefore the close relative said to Boaz, ‘Buy it for yourself.’ So he took off his sandal. And Boaz said to the elders and all the people, ‘You are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s, and all that was Chilion’s and Mahlon’s, from the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, I have acquired as my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from his position at the gate. You are witnesses this day’” (Ruth, 4:7–10). The sandal’s legal symbolism is also evident in the Hebrew law requiring a man to marry his brother’s widow if the brother left no male heir. Deuteronomy provides an explicit commentary: “But if the man does not want to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.’ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to take her,’ Then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house.’

And his name shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal removed’” (Deuteronomy, 25:7–10). To walk barefoot also symbolized mourning. In one ritual, the deceased’s relatives went bareheaded and barefoot with their faces partially covered by a type of scarf and ate gifts of bread from their neighbors. Ezekiel mentions the practice in reference to the mourning of the prophet: “Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover the lower part of your face or eat the customary food of mourners” (Ezekiel, 24:16–17).

In the 8th century BC Amos evoked the legal rights of the poor and the destitute and railed against the fairness of Israel’s courts, corrupted by money. For example, Judges of Israel would issue judgments on insufficient grounds in exchange for a modest gift, a practice the prophet denounced: “I will not turn away its punishment, Because they sell the righteous for silver, And the poor for a pair of sandals” (Amos, 2:6–8).

The sandal symbolizes seduction in the Book of Judith, which recounts the occupation of a small Palestinian village called Bethulia by the armies of the Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar: “I will cover all the land with the feet of my soldiers, to whom I will deliver them as spoils.” (Judith, 2:7)

So Judith, who was a pious widow, got ready to leave town and give herself up to the enemy camp: “She chose sandals for her feet, and put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all her other jewelry. Thus she made herself very beautiful, to captivate the eyes of all the men who should see her.” (Judith, 10:4) With her beauty the young woman aroused the passion of Holphernes, the army’s leader, eventually taking advantage of his stupor after a banquet to cut off his head. In this way she diverted the attention of his armed forces, which included 120,000 infantrymen and 120,000 horsemen. In the hymn of thanksgiving sung by this biblical Joan of Arc, the victorious sandal counts among the accessories of feminine seduction: “Her sandals caught his eyes, and her beauty captivated his mind. The sword cut through his neck” (Judith, 16:9 New American Bible).

The Bible is mostly reticent concerning the aesthetics of the shoe. Ezekiel alludes to it discretely in the guilty loves of Jerusalem: “I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments” (Ezekiel, 16:10). And if the word boot only appears once in Isaiah (“Every warrior’s boot used in battle” (The Birth of the Prince of Peace, Isaiah, 9:5, New International Version), the sandal is primarily recognized as a symbol. This symbolism endures in the Muslim ritual of removing shoes before entering a mosque, a ritual that continues in the Muslim world day.

10. Domenico Feti. Moses before the Burning Bush. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

11. Sandals found in the fortress of Massada.

12. François Boucher, Saint Peter Trying to Walk on Water, 1766. Saint-Louis Cathedral, Versailles.