Shoes and Eyeglasses (symbols)

Julie H · May 27, 2017

This may seem like a strange pair.

For me, there are two things that tie them together. First, shoes enable the body, while glasses enable the mind. But, second — and mainly — because both of these things, when seen in a picture, overwhelmingly evoke the presence/absence of a person (maybe because of the first reason?), often more powerfully than a picture of that person him or herself. Of all the in-common items (i.e. not including idiosyncratic possessions unique to that individual) associated with a person, these two are what do that for me. Why is that?

shoes:

"They are the symbols of the traveler." ... "To remove one's shoes is the first sign of intimacy." ... but/or "The shoes at the bedside show that that person is no longer well enough to walk: they are a sign of death." —

The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols

The sensitivity of the foot to touch, its vaguely phallic shape and the hollow receptacle of the shoe fostered the shoe's erotic connotations. Shoes are common objects of sexual fetishism. —

The Book of Symbols: Reflections of Archetypal Images

eyeglasses:

[

aside from all the positive things they do for us

] They have long been popular idioms in German that refer to charlatans as "eyeglass salesmen" (and which substitute "eyeglasses" for the English "bill of goods"). In any language, as far as idioms are concerned, spectacles often assure not a keen but a predetermined view of life: e.g. "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses." —

Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons & the Meanings Behind Them

***************************************************************

Here is one particular example of shoes, at work in a picture. This is from Geoffrey Batchen's What of Shoes? Van Gogh and Art History. He's looking at Van Gogh's Shoes, (1886):

Shoes, Heidegger proposes, are among those types of things that are useful; indeed the form of a shoe, "firm yet flexible," is determined by a human maker in terms of its projected use as a piece of equipment to clothe the feet. In this sense, he suggests, a shoe occupies a "peculiar position intermediate between thing and work;" "it is half art work and yet something else."

... Heidegger then goes on to describe in remarkably sensorial language the life experienced by the owner of these shoes:

From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field. This equipment is pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending childbed and shivering at the surrounding menace of death. This equipment belongs to the

earth

, and it is protected in the

world

of the peasant woman.

... For Heidegger ... the art of an art work lies in its capacity to transcend its own thingness, to make "public something other than itself."

(Batchen wonders if Heidegger noticed that it's not clear that the two shoes are a pair — they look a lot like two left shoes — and wonders why he makes their wearer a woman.)

By coincidence, when driving into town yesterday, I saw a single brown shoe standing (not lying) in one of the traffic lanes, looking lost and defiant and doomed. Think how different that shoe is from one of a pair neatly sitting in your deceased mother's closet.

What attracts you to photograph shoes and/or eyeglasses?

Norman 202 · May 27, 2017

i can't say i've ever paid any (special) attention to specs or shoes or sought, intentionally, to photograph them. i'm not sure if the following even qualifies as an eyeglass photo or even if the glasses contribute to the image.

Julie H · May 27, 2017

i'm not sure if the following even qualifies as an eyeglass photo.

Yep! They (or half of "them") are there and I like it. It's quirky, they draw my attention, and quirky attention makes these discussions come alive. Good one! Thanks, Norman.

Norman 202 · May 27, 2017

IMG_1478.JPG.de9a545017d66a7de35b6b470268fb9f.JPG

i remember taking this snap and thinking afterwards that the glasses made the girl's eyes look like those of a fly (or some such creature)

Julie H · May 27, 2017

They completely obliterate my awareness of the girl's face: the sunglasses are all I look at. But they're mirrors, not glass. Also, I've been thinking about glasses and shoes without their people. (Norman, I see you ... )

Julie H · May 27, 2017

Phil, those two pictures are really interesting side by side. For me, the shoe, and shoes in general, call up the filling-in body that wore them. It gets a body that's not there; whereas the hand imprint doesn't do that for me. In fact, to me, the hand print says "gone" and I don't get the poignancy that I get from the shoe.

Shoes constrain the mind and blood flow )

They really do. That's an other tangent into conformity. But then the body, during wear, conforms/deforms the shoe to itself. And, because the foot is so sensitive, too sensitive, we need the protection. Etc. etc. ...

(I'm also reminded of shod horses, where the iron shoe is nailed to the foot. And a grotesque description of foot-binding in one of my symbols books.)

Edited May 27, 2017 by Julie H

Norman 202 · May 27, 2017

( The best things about shoes though is when you can take them off and throw them to the side. Shoes constrain the mind and blood flow )

that's true but the next best thing is lacing them up before the walk that makes you go argh as you take them off.

Julie H · May 27, 2017

only men wore high heel shoes

... and with very pointy toes!

Still thinking about your two pictures ... It seems to me that shoes are always particular, so I get a feeling of "a" person whereas prints or tracks are generic. Still thinking ... (also want to look up Lord of the Flies and Piggy's eyeglasses when I get a minute ...)

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2017

Norman 202 · May 27, 2017

[aside from all the positive things they [eyeglasses] do for us]

they make some of us insecure. both of these women are equally attractive. spot the one wearing specs

Julie H · May 27, 2017

Doris Salcedo did an evocative installation using shoes to remember victims of violence in Colombia. Here is a description of the project:

Niches cut into the plaster wall contain shoes as relics or attributes of lost people, donated by the families of those who have disappeared. Shoes are particularly personal items as they carry the imprint of our body more than any other item of clothing. She then sealed the niches with a membrane of cow bladder, which she literally sutured into the plaster of the wall as if picturing the literal process of internalized bodily memory. Barely visible through the animal skin membrane, the shoes are a haunting evocation of their absent owners and inevitably recall the grizzly souvenirs of Nazi death camps.

You can see a picture of some of the embedded shoes here. In contrast to photographs that find damaged or lost shoes where they have fallen, in Salcedo's installation, the shoes are safe and protected while it is their owners who have been the victims of violence.

Edited May 27, 2017 by Julie H

Supriyo · May 27, 2017

Doris Salcedo did an evocative installation using shoes to remember victims of violence in Colombia. Here is a description of the project:

Niches cut into the plaster wall contain shoes as relics or attributes of lost people, donated by the families of those who have disappeared. Shoes are particularly personal items as they carry the imprint of our body more than any other item of clothing. She then sealed the niches with a membrane of cow bladder, which she literally sutured into the plaster of the wall as if picturing the literal process of internalized bodily memory. Barely visible through the animal skin membrane, the shoes are a haunting evocation of their absent owners and inevitably recall the grizzly souvenirs of Nazi death camps.

You can see a picture of some of the embedded shoes here. In contrast to photographs that find damaged or lost shoes where they have fallen, in Salcedo's installation, the shoes are safe and protected while it is their owners who have been the victims of violence.

Julie, this is a mausoleum, where the shoes are meant to remind the viewers of their owners. We obviously connect more to physical possessions than tombstones or plaques, at least in this occasion. Also, the arrangement of the shoes is like a bar code in the wall.

Now, a different thought. What do you feel, when you see a single shoe lying at a place that is impossible to reach, like the bottom of a crevice. For me, it instantly humanizes the place and brings on a feeling of insecurity and danger. I almost put myself in that shoe.

Julie H · May 27, 2017

What do you feel, when you see a single shoe lying at a place that is impossible to reach, like the bottom of a crevice. For me, it instantly humanizes the place and brings on a feeling of insecurity and danger. I almost put myself in that shoe.

That's exactly how I feel.

And single shoes are different from pairs, and pairs in splayed or violated configurations (i.e. not neatly side-by-side).

The only ones that don't really do much for me are the pairs thrown over powerlines that were a trend a while ago (maybe still?). Those seem kind of silly.

sjmurray · May 28, 2017

Its their

similar eyeglasses that got me to shoot this photo of my brother and a buddy of mine.

Julie H · May 28, 2017

I was thinking of shoes and glasses separated from their people when I started the thread, but since so many of you are going to glasses and shoes-with-their-people (thank you!), I'll go with the flow (though I do hope you looked at Phil's shoe picture, which I think is an excellent example of what I was thinking of at the start).

Looking at this picture by Robert H. Schutz of shoes-on-their-people, I'm struck by the fact that I know immediately who these two people are. I would guess that any American over a certain age will also know who they are. Do you?

In this Alexander Rodchenko portrait of his mother, the glasses-on-the-person are the nitty-gritty of the picture, IMO. There seems to be a war going on between them and the face.

Glasses will make you into an intellectual, as you will see in this William Wegman portrait.

One from Eggleston, and one from Friedlander, and one from Henri Cartier Bresson just so I can name drop.

Edward Weston has a still-life Birthday card that he made for Charis that includes glasses (his) and a shoe (hers) but I can't find a large version of it on the web.

Back to Wegman, here is a great shoe picture. Might take a minute for you to figure it out.

And, finally, from Harold Edgerton, a very aggressive shoe.

michaellinder · May 28, 2017

Julie, this is a mausoleum, where the shoes are meant to remind the viewers of their owners. We obviously connect more to physical possessions than tombstones or plaques, at least in this occasion. Also, the arrangement of the shoes is like a bar code in the wall.

Now, a different thought. What do you feel, when you see a single shoe lying at a place that is impossible to reach, like the bottom of a crevice. For me, it instantly humanizes the place and brings on a feeling of insecurity and danger. I almost put myself in that shoe.

Supriyo, in wandering through the U.S. Holocaust Museum's library of photographs, I found an image that, in my opinion, has extraordinary impact and power. It speaks obviously to the Nazis' planned extermination of the Jewish people, but it also prompted me to wonder about the persons who wore these shoes - where they lived, what they did, etc. I am attaching a copy of the image, FYI.

michaellinder · May 28, 2017

The following image is the result of contrivance; its subject - two pairs of my wife's shoes. To me, its main value is evoking memories of my son's wedding. To anyone else, I suspect it simply displays 21st century human foot coverings.

michaellinder · May 28, 2017

Was at a bar last night and saw this:

http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o707/dreamandbe1/WP_20170528_00_16_07_Pro_zpspj45cgvn.jpg

Phil, did you leave the bar with both shoes? Quirky, effective image

michaellinder · May 29, 2017

Michael yes, it was a close call but I left the bar and came home with both shoes on!

Whew!

Norma Desmond · May 29, 2017

Memorial Day Commemoration—Boots of Fallen Veterans—City Hall/Civic Center Plaza, SF

Julie H · May 30, 2017

The following is made with Supriyo's questions, from a previous symbols thread, in mind. Given that this post is very long and life is short, Supriyo is welcome to pretend he didn't see it ... :)

A little bit of Barthes to set the next part up:

The realists of whom I am one and of whom I was already one when I asserted that the Photograph was an image without code — even if, obviously, certain codes do inflect our reading of it — the realists do not take the photograph for a "copy" of reality, but for an emanation of

past reality: a magic

, not an art. To ask whether a photograph is analogical or coded is not a good means of analysis. The important thing is that the photograph possess an evidential force, and that its testimony bears not on the object but on time. From a phenomenological viewpoint, in the Photograph, t]he power of authentication exceeds the power of representation.

Now on to the what Mary Price writes in The Photograph: A Strange Confined Space, starting with her quote from John Tagg:

This is not the inflection of a prior (though irretrievable) reality, as Barthes would have us believe, but the production of a new and specific reality, the photograph, which becomes meaningful in certain transactions and has real effects, but

which cannot refer or be referred to a pre-photographic reality as to a truth

. The photograph is not a magical "emanation" but a material product of a material apparatus set to work is specific contexts, by specific forces, for more or less defined purposes. It requires, therefore, not an alchemy but a history, outside which the existential essence of photography is empty and

cannot deliver what Barthes desires: the confirmation of an existence; the mark of a past presence; the repossession of his mother's body

. (Emphasis added by Price.)

These statements cannot be reconciled even though they are not altogether contradictory. Reconciliation would involve establishing facts, whereas facts are precisely the source of disagreement. Barthes says the photograph is a magical emanation; Tagg says it is not. Barthes says the photograph is evidence of something existing in the past; Tagg says it is evidence of something to be determined by investigation of material history and use.

Tagg's argument would be perfectly understandable if only he did not insist on denying Barthes's argument. One difference between the two statements is that Barthes is subtle, poetic, and at home with both imagination and imaginative language, whereas Tagg seems afraid that if he entertains Barthes's imaginative construal of the photograph he will relinquish both contingency and specificity.

If one thinks of that straight line from object through lens to photograph, with indexical correlation, that transcription, the question arises, How can Tagg say the photograph "cannot refer or be referred to a pre-photographic reality as to a truth"? Is the line not straight? Yes, the line is straight; the idea of transcription can be kept, and it will correspond to fact. Fact, in turn, to become meaningful, requires interpretation, context, and correspondence to other facts. Tagg's "reality" and Barthes's "authentication" can both refer and be referred (by means of the imagined straight line) to the pre-photographic scene. Tagg's two realities are, first, the irretrievable original scene, and second, the new and specific reality, the photograph — the first, I would say, transcribed into the second. Barthes's term,

authentication

, is the confirmation of meaning not in the represented scene itself, not in Tagg's new and specific reality, but in the photograph as evidence that the scene at one past time existed.

[

line break added

] Tagg's denial that Barthes can identify the very portrait of his mother that restores the sense of her being (not, as Tagg has it, "the repossession of his mother's body") is outside the possibility of reference to truth. The

truth

of reference can be only to the representable world, in which objects (and the mother) can be pointed to, not to a realm of imagination, where what Barthes says is true

is

true because he has created and experienced that realm and conveys its use to his readers. Barthes is occupied with a passionate demand for a sign from the grave, but the search, as he well knows, takes place in his imagination ("So I make myself the measure of photographic 'knowledge' ").

Tagg believes that the meanings of a photograph are revealed by the bias of interest and also that disclosure of interest is governed by the intended use of the photograph. His difference with Barthes lies in the claim for use of the photograph; either use seems to me defensible; the personal, phenomenological use by Barthes, or the institutional, materialistic use postulated by Tagg. No difference exists in the insistence on the need for interpretation; no difference exists in the belief that the photograph registers objects by means of transcription; no difference either in the belief that the objects interrupting the light existed.

[

line break added

] Tagg places the difference in their respective definitions of the problem. "The problem is historical, not existential," he insists, and continues, "To conjure up something of what it [the problem] involves today, I suggest in the text that you ask yourself, and not just rhetorically, under what conditions would a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster (of which there are many) be acceptable? The Loch Ness monster as an example is different from the unicorn because many people do believe there is such a monster, whereas no one believes in a unicorn.

No photograph would ever be acceptable as proof of the monster's existence to those convinced that no such monster exists. For those who believe the monster exists, no proof is necessary, and a photograph simply confirms belief. But this only makes problematic the use of the photograph as "evidence."

Julie H · May 30, 2017

"I am ... asking that we ask ... what a photograph is, and I feel you are missing its strangeness, failing to recognize, for example, that the relation between photograph and subject does not fit our concept of representation, one thing standing for another, disconnected thing, or one forming a likeness of another. ... A representation emphasizes the identity of its subject, hence it may be called a likeness; a photograph emphasizes the existence of its subject, recording it, hence it is that it may be called a transcription." — Stanley Cavell

michaellinder · May 30, 2017

"I am ... asking that we ask ... what a photograph is, and I feel you are missing its strangeness, failing to recognize, for example, that the relation between photograph and subject does not fit our concept of representation, one thing standing for another, disconnected thing, or one forming a likeness of another. ... A representation emphasizes the identity of its subject, hence it may be called a likeness; a photograph emphasizes the existence of its subject, recording it, hence it is that it may be called a transcription." — Stanley Cavell

Julie: I admit to being unfamiliar with Cavell's work. For me to respond to your last post, can you please provide at least a hint of his position on representation, in case the quote doesn't contain all I need to know? (I'm not sure what you quoted fully states that position.)

Norman 202 · May 31, 2017

No photograph would ever be acceptable as proof of the monster's existence to those convinced that no such monster exists

what about a photo of the LNM in the Gulf of Thailand? Would that help?

Julie H · May 31, 2017

position on representation

How about I give you two stories about identity vs transcription, which is what Cavell is after:

In 1906, two histologists, the Spaniard Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Italian Camillo Golgi, shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. For both men that put one too many neuroscientists in Stockholm.

... Indeed, there was not a single part of Cajal's program — the clam that each neuron was functionally, developmentally, and structurally independent — that Golgi accepted. In the first instance, as Golgi openly argued in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech [

I'll skip the argument

] ...

... Here was a fiercely consuming debate between the two competitors, fought to a large extent over the objectivity of images — an all-out image war. Both scientists brought numerous figures to their presentations. Furious at what he considered Golgi's visual manipulations, Cajal accusingly wrote of his rival's "strange mental constitutio[n]," one "hermetically sealed against criticism by its "egocentricity." Golgi was closed to the evidence (according to Cajal) and his inability to register faithfully the outside world of nature had plunged him into an "absurd position" for which one could only appeal to psychiatry for adequate terms. To Cajal, their joint presence in Stockholm was a grotesque injustice: "What a cruel irony of fate to pair, like Siamese twins united by the shoulders, scientific adversaries of such contrasting character!" True, Cajal is generally seen as having won this debate, but it is also true that Cajal's theoretical stance (endorsing the neuron doctrine) shaped some of his own depictions. —

Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison

, Objectivity

**********

In Michael Antonioni's

Blow-Up

, a professional photographer takes pictures in a park because he finds the landscape beautiful. When he develops the film, some obscure and barely readable figures in the background suggest that he has inadvertently included the picture of a murder. His passion of curiosity about what is actually on the film and what it means requires that he repeatedly enlarge (blow up) the frames to discern the details. But the enlargements produce their own distortions in graininess and ambiguity of outline. His best technical efforts refuse to disclose an absolute correspondence between what he imagines (the victim of a murder, which he imagines whether or not he can clarify it on film) and what is actual, which he can determine only by verifying his imagining. The slippage between the mind's eye and the physical eye, ways of seeing which humans try to make coincide, can never be easily verified. —

Mary Price

The pictures are transcriptions; the identity of what is seen depends on the viewer(s).

One further comment: most of what passes for "abstract" photography is cases where the photographer transcribes (photographs) what he thinks the viewer won't be able to identify and that's his only purpose; if you can't tell what it is, it must be abstract. He hopes you won't be able to identify what it is.

That's the opposite of what most other arts consider to be abstract. In those arts, the artist has a very clear understanding of the identity he has in mind, but while it can be expressed, it can't be transcribed. He hopes you will be able to identify what he has in mind.

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Shoes and Eyeglasses (symbols)

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