Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa188-1-4
Title The Otherness and the Legal Symbolism of the Gestures of Treading in the Motives of Discalciation, Removed Shoes, and Monosandalism in Early Netherlandish and German Art
Author email rogovm@hotmail.com
About author Rogov, Mikhail Anatolyevich — Ph. D., associate professor. Dubna International University, Uni-versitetskaia ul., 19, 141982 Dubna, Moscow Region, Russian Federation.
In the section Western European Art of the Modern Age DOI10.18688/aa188-1-4
Year 2018 Volume 8 Pages 5060
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.046.3.246;7.033.5(430)3 Index BBK 85.14
Abstract

This paper is devoted to the main groups of iconographical motifs of removed shoes, discalceation, and monosandalism in Early Netherlandish and German art and their relation to the gestures of treading. Firstly, these are motifs symbolizing otherness, heresy, stupidity, insanity, and buffoonery in the stories of “The Ship of Fools”, “The Prodigal Son”, “Extraction of Stones of Folly” (Moria), and others. The roots of these motifs of laughter culture can be associated with the ancient monosandalism of the Dionysian motives of disbalance. Secondly, these are the motifs of legal symbolism — the Jewish rituals of the cession of rights (Kinyan), including the ritual of divorce in the levirate marriage (Khalitsa), respect for jurisdiction by removing the shoes before the sacred place and derivative genre motifs (for example, the regional cult of the “Joseph’s diapers”). Particular attention has been paid to the legal symbolism of divorce (Mt. 1:19) in the context of the analysis of the European divorce and the separation “a mensa et thoro” statistics in the 14th-15th centuries, reflecting the specifics of paternalistic relations in the Franco-Flemish region. Thirdly, these are other genre, erotic, folklore and literary motifs. In the form of genre details, sometimes with possible allusions to the above-mentioned meanings, these motifs are inherited in the art of the 17th century, for example, in paintings by Rembrandt, Metsyu, and Vermeer.

Keywords
Reference Rogov, Mikhail A. The Otherness and the Legal Symbolism of the Gestures of Treading in the Motives of Discalciation, Removed Shoes, and Monosandalism in Early Netherlandish and German Art. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 8. Ed. S. V. Mal’tseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova, A. V. Zakharova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2018, pp. 50–60. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa188-1-4
Publication Article language russian
Bibliography
  • Aigremont Dr. Fuss- und Schuh-Symbolik und-Eroiik. Darmstadt, Blaschke Verlag Publ., 1909. 73 p. (in German).
  • Amelung W. Di alcune sculture antiche e di un rito dei culto delle divina sotterranee. Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia, 1907, vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 113-135 (in Italian).
  • Blundell S. “Beneath Their Shining Feet”: Shoes and Sandals in Classical Greece. Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers. Oxford, Bloomsbury Academic Publ., 2006, pp. 24-39.
  • Bourdieu P. Sur le pouvoir symbolique. Annales. Economie. Société. Civilisations, 1977, no. 3, pp. 405-411 (in French).
  • Brelich A. Les monosandales. La Nouvelle Clio, 1955-1957, vol. 7-9, pp. 469-489 (in French).
  • Brilliant R. Gesture and Rank in Roman Art: the Use of Gestures to Denote Status in Roman Sculpture and Coinage (Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 14). New Haven, Connecticut Academy Publ., 1963. 238 p.
  • Brubaker L. Gesture in Byzantium. Past and Present, 2009, vol. 203, suppl. 4, pp. 36-56.
  • Brunel J. Jason monocrepis. Revue Archeologique, 1934, vol. 4, pp. 34-43.
  • Carboni R. Divagazione sul tema del sandalo: significato e valenza tra la sfera celeste e quella ctonia. Gaia: revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce Archaïque, 2013, no. 16, pp. 113-131 (in Italian).
  • Chapman A. J. The Welsh Soldier: 1283-1422. Doctoral Thesis. University of Southampton, School of Humanities, 2009. 305 p.
  • De Loos-Dietz E. P. Le monosandalos dans L’Antiquité. BABesch, 1994, vol. 69, pp. 175-197 (in French).
  • Deonna W. Monocrépides. Revue de l’histoire des religiotts, 1935, no. 89, pp. 50-72 (in French).
  • Deroy L. Un symbolisme juridique de la chaussure. L’antiquité classique, 1961, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 371-380 (in French).
  • Deuchler F. Strukturen und Schauplatze Der Gestik: Gebarden und ihre Handlungsorte in der Malerei des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter Publ., 2014. 399 p. (in German).
  • Donahue C. Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages: Arguments about Marriage in Five Courts. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Publ., 2007. 696 p.
  • Garnier F. Le Langage de L’image au Moyen Age, 2. Grammaries des gestes, Paris, Le Léopard d’Or Publ., 1989. 424 p. (in French).
  • Gombrich E. H. Ritualized Gesture and Expression in Art. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 1966, vol. 251, no. 772, pp. 393-401.
  • Grabar A. L’Empereur dans l’art byzantin: Recherches sur l’art officiel de l’Empire d’Orient. Paris, les Belles Lettres Publ., 1936. 290 p. (in French).
  • Grew F.; de Neergaard M. Shoes and Pattens. Woodbridge, The Boydell Press Publ., 2006. 152 p.
  • Hall J. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. London, J. Murray Publ., 1979. 349 p.
  • Heublein B. Der „verkannte“ Joseph. Zur mittelalterlichen Ikonographie des Heiligen im deutschen und niederländischen Kulturraum. Weimar, Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften Publ., 1998. 285 p. (in German).
  • Hourihane C. Medieval Iconography, an Introduction. The Routledge Companion to the Medieval Iconography. New York, Routledge, 2017, pp. 55-70.
  • Karet E. The Drawings of Stefano Da Verona (1375-1451) and His Circle and the Origins of Collection in Italy: a catalogue raisonné. Verona, Accademia di agricoltura, scienze e lettere Publ., 2003. 210 p.
  • Kirillina L. V. The Image of a Great Musician in the Fine Arts of the 18th Сentury. Klassicheskoe iskusstvo ot Drevnosti do XX veka (Classical Art from Antiquity to the 20th Century), Moscow, KomKniga Publ., 2007, pp. 167-188 (in Russian).
  • Lapensée V. Le symbolisme du monosandalisme et de la claudication dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine: dissertazione. — Montréal: Université Du Québec À Montréal, 2011. 113 p. (in French).
  • Lebeuf A. Stopa bosa stopa obuta (One Foot Bare Other Shod). Krakow, Nomos Publ., 2003. 132 p. (in Polish).
  • Male E. L’Art religieux du Xllle siecle en France, étude sur l’iconographie du Moyen Age et sur ses sources d’inspiration. Paris, Leroux Publ., 1898. 534 p.
  • McGrew R. Encyclopedia of Medical History. New York, McGraw-Hill Publ., 1985, pp. 30-31.
  • Merceron J. Le pied, le boiteux et l’audelà. Bulletin de la société mythologique franςaise, 1990, vol. 157, pp. 63-67 (in French).
  • Mezger W. Narrenidee und Fastnachtsbrauch. Studien zum Fortleben des Mittelalters in der europäischen Festkultur. Konstanz, Universitätsverlag Publ., 1991. 624 p. (in German).
  • Michel P. Transformation und Augmentation bei Petrarca und seinem Meister. Enzyklopädistik 15501650. Typen und Transformationen von Wissensspeichern und Medialisierungen des Wissens. M. Schierbaum (ed.). (Reihe: Pluralisierung & Autorität, hg. vom Sonderforschungsbereich 573 der LMU München, Bd 18), Münster,Westf., LIT-Verlag Publ., 2009, pp. 349-377 (in German).
  • Nacht J. The Symbolism of the Shoe with Special Reference to Jewish Sources. The Jewish Quarterly Review New Series, 1915, vol. 6, no. 1 (Jul., 1915), pp. 1-22.
  • Panofsky E. Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait. Burlington Magazine, vol. 64, no. 372 (Mar., 1934), pp. 117119, 122-127.
  • Panofsky E. Early Netherlandish Painting, Its Origins and Character. New York, Harper & Row Publ., 1971. 358 p.
  • Pasquinelli B. Il gesto e l’espressione. Milano, Electa Publ., 2005. 367 p.
  • Patton P. A. The Other in the Middle Ages. Difference, Identity, Iconography. The Routledge Companion to the Medieval Iconography. New York, Routledge, 2017, pp. 969-991.
  • Robertson E. W. The Acre and Hide. The Gentleman’s Magazine, Dec. 1866, vol. 221, p. 734.
  • Robertson M. Monocrepis. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 1972, vol. 13, pp. 39-48.
  • Rogov M. Speculum humanae Salvationis: Iconographic and Stylistic Analysis of Miniatures from the Collection of N. Ugodina. Scriptorium: revue international des etudes relatives aux manuscrits, 2015, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 275-292, pl. 34-35.
  • Rogov M. Unknown Fragments of the Konigsberg Illuminated Manuscript from the Collection of Natalya Ugodina: a Late Gothic Motif of “Treading-on-another’s-Garment”. Deutsch-russische Kulturbeziehungen in Mittelalter und Neuzeit. Aus abendländischen Beständen in Russland. Ergebnisse der Tagung des deutsch-russischen Arbeitskreises vom 7 bis 9. April 2016 an der Philipps-Universität Marburg (Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt, Sonderschriften 49; Deutsch-russische Forschungen zur Buchgeschichte, Bd. 4). Erfurt; Stuttgart, 2017, pp. 107-114.
  • Schmitt J.-C. The Rationale of Gestures in the West: Third to Thirteenth Centuries. A Cultural History of Gesture: From Antiquity to the Present Day. J. Bremmer, H. Roodenburg (eds.). Cambridge, Polity Publ., 1991, pp. 63-64.
  • Schroer S.; Staubli T. Die Körpersymbolik der Bibel. Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Publ., 1998. 276 p. (in German).