Van Gogh was fond of the imaginative possibilities of old boots, and he painted or drew them on a number of occasions. A fellow student in Paris reported that Vincent bought these workman's boots at a flea market, intending to use them in a still life. Finding them still a little too smart, however, he wore them on a long and rainy walk. Only then were they fit to be painted. There is some of that in this painting.
It was done fairly early in his relatively short career as a painter, when he was living with his brother Theo in Rue Lepic, devouring subject matter of all kinds. You can tell that his eyes just could not get enough of these old boots, with their gleaming, tough-minded studs and riddling, near-dancing laces. The use of colors in the painting has been said to herald his change from dark paintings with lots of browns to more vibrant colors that characterize his works from Arles, where he moved in 1888.
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