p[art]nership - riding boots displayed in art

 I'd like to introduce you all to Tabitha for today's p[art]nership article.  She has a keen eye for fashion and shares her thoughts and ideas at her blog Bourbon & Pearls. The p[art]nership series is all about how art relates to interior design and fashion.

Meridith Martins - Boots and Whip

 “I have to cover my legs with powder, it’s the only way and lie on my back with my legs in the air. And then my maid and I have to pull as hard as we possibly can for hours and hours.”

“Can it be worth this agony?”

“Oh yes they look wonderful when they are on. I feel tremendously proud of myself.”

“What are you talking about, Cicily?”

“My new hunting boots.”

- The Shooting Party

The delight displayed by Cicily, an Edwardian country lady in the classic 1982 film as regards her riding boots is evident in her lines, for clambering up onto a horse is a means of climbing out of the corset tight constraints of class and sexual politics and dancing with nature.

Conjured on canvas in a palette of browns, the riding boot in art has long been a symbol of male domination, but look past the starched shirts of Napoleon and Wellington in their polished black boots, towards the naturalism of ladies at equestrian leisure and you will see them for what they are: a passport to freedom.

Thomas Mellish on Saucebox by Benjamin Marshall

The constraints of social mores, which insisted that one did not even take off one’s own jacket, much less bend down to put on shoes etc, meant a stifling existence for the fairer sex, a perfect prison. Yet to straddle a powerful animal, seize control of the reins and gallop into the whistling wind was to break free, if only for the duration of the hunt.

 This  experience is portrayed in its most reduced form in Meredith Marten’s painting above where one  can see the stories of horseback adventures unfolding in the boot's  leather creases. The leather has been kept supple and well tended and whomever they belonged too treasured them as they would a  fine gown.

For there is love in tending to a fine pair of boots. There is a reverence for the boots and where the boots  may take one. They offer  independence and a time to be oneself, for riding is a contemplative experience. When one is   secure in a tightly fitting pair of riding boots and with an obedient horse there are no boundaries and every fence is a challenge to be met.

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