mind in matter

8/3/2019 Mind in Matter

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Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc.

Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and MethodAuthor(s): Jules David PrownSource: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), pp. 1-19Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum,Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1180761

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M i n d i n M a t t e rAn Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method

Jules David Prown

LTHOUGH ART MUSEUMS, historicalsocieties, museums of history and tech-nology, historic houses, open-air mu-seums, and museums of ethnography, science, andeven natural history, have long collected, studied,and exhibited the material of what has come to becalled materialculture,no comprehensive academicphilosophy or discipline for the investigation ofmaterial culture has as yet been developed. Re-cently, however, there has been increased scholarlyinterest in the subject, as witnessed by the estab-lishment of this periodical, WinterthurPortfolio,de-voted specifically to material culture; graduate pro-grams in material culture at University of Delaware,University of Notre Dame, and Boston University;an experimental Center for American Art andMaterial Culture at Yale University; and a substan-tial amount of innovative scholarship, especially insuch emerging academic areas as folk life and cul-tural geography (a selective material culture bibli-ography is appended below). These developmentsand activities have been spontaneous and largelyuncoordinated responses to a perceived scholarlyneed and opportunity. This essay attempts to de-fine material culture and considers the nature ofthe discipline. It makes no claim to be either thefirst or the last word on material culture, but it doesseek to illuminate the subject and to provide a basisfor further discussion. It also proposes a particularmethodology based on the proposition that arti-facts are primary data for the study of materialculture, and, therefore, they can be used activelyas evidence rather than passively as illustrations.'

Jules David Prown is professor, Department of the Historyof Art, Yale University.There are material culture studies that do not require ob-ject analysis, in part because they address questions posed bythe very existence of artifacts that lead directly to the consid-eration of external evidence. This is particularly true of socio-? 1982 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.All rights reserved, 0084-0416/82/1701-0001$02.00.

What is Material Culture?Material culture is the study through artifacts ofthe beliefs-values, ideas, attitudes, and assump-tions-of a particular community or society at agiven time. The term material culture is also fre-quently used to refer to artifacts themselves, to thebody of material available for such study. I shallrestrict the term to mean the study and refer to theevidence simply as materialor artifacts.Materialculture is singular as a mode of culturalinvestigation in its use of objects as primary data,but in its scholarly purposes it can be considereda branch of cultural history or cultural anthropol-ogy. It is a means rather than an end, a disciplinerather than a field. In this, material culture differsfrom art history, for example, which is both a dis-cipline (a mode of investigation) in its study of his-tory through art and a field (a subject of investi-gation) in its study of the history of art itself.Material culture is comparable to art history as adiscipline in its study of culture through artifacts.As such, it provides a scholarly approach to artifactsthat can be utilized by investigators in a variety offields. But the material of material culture is toodiverse to constitute a single field. In practice itconsists of subfields investigated by specialists-cul-tural geographers or historians of art, architecture,decorative arts, science, and technology.Material culture as a study is based upon theobvious fact that the existence of a man-made ob-ject is concrete evidence of the presence of a humanintelligence operating at the time of fabrication.The underlying premise is that objects made ormodified by man reflect, consciously or uncon-economic studies that deal with artifacts abstractly,often statis-tically, to address issues of class, patronage, patterns of usage,levels of technology, availability of materials, means of distri-bution, and so on.


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WinterthurPortfoliosciously, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of indi-viduals who made, commissioned, purchased, orused them, and by extension the beliefs of thelarger society to which they belonged. The termmaterial culture thus refers quite directly and effi-ciently, if not elegantly, both to the subject matterof the study, material,and to its purpose, the un-derstanding of culture.Despite its concision and aptness, the term ma-terial cultureseems unsatisfactory, indeed, self-con-tradictory.Material is a word we associate with baseand pragmatic things; culture s a word we associatewith lofty, intellectual, abstract things. Our uneasewith this apparent disjunction is not superficial; itderives from a fundamental human perception ofthe universe as divided between earth and sky.Thatempiricallyobserved opposition of lower and higherprovides a powerful and pervasive metaphor forthe distinctions we make between such elementalpolarities as material and spiritual, concrete andabstract, finite and infinite, real and ideal. In itstheological formulation this metaphor invariablylocates heaven upward, above the earth, accessiblenot to the body but only to the mind or spirit (withmortification of the flesh [material] one way toachieve spiritual ends), and places hell in the bowelsof the earth, down deep in the midst of matter.Material things are heir to all sorts of ills-theybreak, get dirty, smell, wear out; abstract ideas re-main pristine, free from such wordly debilities.The Western conception of history is that it hasbeen characterized by man's increasing under-standing and mastery of the physical environment,by the progressive triumph of mind over matter.The evidence of human history seems to confirmour sense that abstract, intellectual, spiritual ele-ments are superior to material and physical things.This has led inevitably to a hierarchical orderingthat informs our apprehension and judgment ofhuman activities and experiences.2 This uncon-

2 For example, poetry, because more abstract, is consideredloftier than prose, chess than wrestling, or the practice of lawthan collecting garbage. In the world of scholarship the moreabstract subjects-mathematics, philosophy, literature-are morehighly regarded than concrete and practical subjects such asengineering. Such ordering takes place even within the materialrealm of artifacts where all things are not equal. Higher valuehas been attached to works of art than to utilitarian craft objectssince the Renaissance when a distinction was made between thearts, which require intellectual activity and creative imaginationin their making, and the crafts, which require greater physicalexertion and mechanical ingenuity. Even in a specific art suchas painting, there has long been an ordering of genres, rangingfrom history painting, which springs from the painter's imag-ination, at the top of the scale, to still-life painting, the repli-cation of worldly objects, at the bottom. In architecture, themental activity of design has been considered an appropriate

scious ordering makes us uncomfortable with theterminological coupling of base material and loftyculture.Nevertheless, the term materialculture, f notideal, has the advantage of being concise, accurate,and in general use.MaterialThe word material in material culture refers to abroad, but not unrestricted, range of objects. Itembraces the class of objects known as artifacts-objects made by man or modified by man. It ex-cludes natural objects. Thus, the study of materialculture might include a hammer, a plow, a micro-scope, a house, a painting, a city. It would excludetrees, rocks, fossils, skeletons. Two general obser-vations should be made here. First, natural objectsare occasionally encountered in a pattern that in-dicates human activity-a stone wall or a row oftrees in an otherwise random forest, a concentra-tion of chicken bones in a pit or a pile of oystershells, topiary or a clipped poodle, a tattooed bodyor a prepared meal. In the broadest sense thesenatural materials are artifacts-objects modified byman-and are of cultural interest. Second, worksof art constitute a large and special category withinartifacts because their inevitable aesthetic and oc-casional ethical or spiritual (iconic) dimensionsmake them direct and often overt or intentionalexpressions of cultural belief. The self-consciouslyexpressive character of this material, however,raises problems as well as opportunities; in someways artifacts that express culture unconsciouslyare more useful as objective cultural indexes.3 Forthe moment, however, let it simply be borne inmind that all tangible works of art are part of ma-terial culture, but not all the material of materialculture is art.The range of objects that fall within the com-pass of material culture is so broad as to make somesystem of classification desirable. Sorting by phys-ical materials does not work because of the multi-plicity of substances used, even at times in a singleartifact. The same is true of methods of fabrication.The most promising mode of classification is byfunction. The following list is arranged in a se-quence of categories that progresses from the moredecorative (or aesthetic) to the more utilitarian.pursuit for gentlemen (for example, Thomas Jefferson), whilethe actual physical labor of building has been carried out bylaborers of the lower classes. In sculpture in the nineteenthcentury, the realization of the form indwelling in the marblewas the work of the artist; hacking out replications was the workof stonemasons.3See the section on veracity below.

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Mind in Matter1. Art (paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture,photography)2. Diversions (books, toys, games, meals, the-atrical performances)3. Adornment (jewelry, clothing, hairstyles,

cosmetics, tattooing, other alterations of thebody)4. Modifications of the landscape (architecture,town planning, agriculture, mining)5. Applied arts (furniture, furnishings, recep-tacles)6. Devices (machines, vehicles, scientific instru-ments, musical instruments, implements)These categories are broad; they undoubtedlyrequire modification and refining; the list is in-tended simply to define the terrain and suggestthe outlines of a system. Many objects straddle cat-egories, but taxonomic shortcomings do not causeanalytical problems. Classification for purposes ofmanageability and discussion does not affect theactual process of material culture analysis describedbelow which applies to all artifacts. Although therange of categories suggests the potential applica-bility of a variety of specialized techniques andmethodologies, no systematic attempt is made inthis general essay to correlate categories of objectswith particular analytical methods or with the pro-duction of particular kinds of cultural data. How-ever, further consideration is given to these cate-gories in the final section.

Why Material Culture?Why should one bother to investigate material ob-jects in the quest for culture, for a society's systemsof belief? Surely people in all societies express andhave expressed their beliefs more explicitly andopenly in their words and deeds than in the thingsthey have made. Are there aspects of mind to bediscovered in objects that differ from, complement,supplement, or contradict what can be learnedfrom more traditional literary and behavioralsources?Inherent and AttachedValueThe most obvious cultural belief associated withmaterial objects has to do with value. There aredifferent kinds of value. One, intrinsic in the fabricof an object itself, is established by the rarity of thematerials used. Such value will inhere in the objectfor as long as the material continues to be valuable.With gold or silver or precious stones, this kind of

value is quite persistent. More transient or variableare those values that have been attached by thepeople who originally made or used the object, byus today, or by people at any intervening moment.A value that accrues from utility will inhere as longas an object continues to be useful and can returnwhen an obsolete object again becomes useful(wood stoves in an oil shortage). In addition tomaterial and utilitarian values, certain objects haveaesthetic value (art), some possess spiritual value(icons, cult objects), and some express attitudes to-ward other human beings (a fortress, a love seat)or toward the world (using materials in their nat-ural condition as opposed to reshaping them).Obviously, then, objects do embody and reflectcultural beliefs. But, although such embodimentsof value differ in form from verbal and behavioralmodes of cultural expression, they do not neces-sarily differ in character or content. In the follow-ing regards, however, objects do constitute distinc-tive cultural expressions.SurvivingHistoricalEventsObjects created in the past are the only historicaloccurrences that continue to exist in the present.They provide an opportunity by which "we en-counter the past at first hand; we have direct sen-sory experience of surviving historical events."4Artifacts may not be important historical events,but they are, to the extent that they can be expe-rienced and interpreted as evidence, significant.More RepresentativeHenry Glassie has observed that only a small per-centage of the world's population is and has beenliterate, and that the people who write literatureor keep diaries are atypical. Objects are used by amuch broader cross section of the population andare therefore potentially a more wide-ranging,more representative source of information thanwords.5 They offer the possibility of a way to un-derstand the mind of the great majority of nonlit-erate people, past and present, who remain oth-erwise inaccessible except through impersonalrecords and the distorting view of a contemporary

4Jules David Prown, "Style as Evidence," Winterthur ortfolio15, no. 3 (Autumn 1980): 208. Peter Gay has observed that "themost undramatic work of art presents precisely the same causalpuzzles as the eruption of a war, the making of a treaty, or therise of a class" (Artand Act: On Causes n History-Manet, Gropius,Mondrian [New York: Harper & Row, 1976], p. 3).5 Henry Glassie, "Meaningful Things and AppropriateMyths: The Artifact's Place in American Studies," in Prospects:An Annual of AmericanCulturalStudies,ed. Jack Salzman, vol. 3(New York: Burt Franklin, 1977), pp. 29-30.

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WinterthurPortfolioliterary elite. This promise perhaps explains whymany of the leading early proponents, indeed pi-oneers, of material culture have come from thefield of folklore and folk life and have studied ver-nacular objects. Such study has required a consid-erable amount of scholarly innovation. Vernacularobjects pose interpretive difficulties because ourscholarly traditions and experience, especially inregard to art, architecture, and the decorative arts,have focused on high style objects.The theoretical democratic advantage of arti-facts in general, and vernacular material in partic-ular, is partially offset by the skewed nature of whatin fact survives from an earlier culture. A primaryfactor in this is the destructive, or the preservative,effect of particular environments on particularmaterials. Materials from the deeper recesses oftime are often buried, and recovered archaeolog-ically. Of the material heritage of such cultures,glass and ceramics survive in relatively good con-dition, metal in poor to fair condition, wood in theform of voids (postholes), and clothing not at all(except for metallic threads, buttons, and an oddclasp or hook).Inherent and attached value, discussed above,is another major element in what survives. A sig-nificant aspect of this is taste, or, more specifically,changes in taste over the years. A "degree-of-so-phistication" scale, ranging from rude vernacularat one end to high style at the other, comes intoplay. The calibrations on this scale have obviousimplications of social class. High style objects, some-times of precious materials and fabricated withtechnical skill that elicits admiration, tend to bepreserved; ruder objects, which for economic rea-sons sometimes have much less invested in themin terms of the quality of the material or the crafts-manship, simply may not last as long or, if they do,tend eventually to be discarded as junk. Objectswith iconic or associational value are preserved, butwhen they lose that association (religious paintingsin a secular society, photographs of unknown ances-tors), they become disposable.Even allowing for the distortions of survival, itremains true that objects can make accessible as-pects, especially nonelite aspects, of a culture thatare not always present or detectable in other modesof cultural expression.VeracityCertain fundamental beliefs in any society are sogenerally accepted that they never need to be ar-ticulated (see Cultural Perspectivebelow). Thesebasic cultural assumptions, the detection of which

is essential for cultural understanding, are conse-quently not perceivable in whata society expresses.They can, however, be detected in the wayin whicha society expresses itself, in the configuration orform of things, in style.6 Stylistic evidence can befound in all modes of cultural expression, whetherverbal, behavioral, or material. But a society putsa considerable amount of cultural spin on what itconsciously says and does. Cultural expression isless self-conscious, and therefore potentially moretruthful, in what a society produces, especially suchmundane, utilitarian objects as domestic buildings,furniture, or pots.CulturalPerspectivePerhaps the most difficult problem to recognizeand surmount in cultural studies is that of culturalstance or cultural perspective. The evidence westudy is the product of a particular cultural envi-ronment. We, the interpreters, are products of adifferent cultural environment. We are pervadedby the beliefs of our own social groups-nation,locality, class, religion, politics, occupation, gender,age, race, ethnicity-beliefs in the form of assump-tions that we make unconsciously. These are biasesthat we take for granted; we accept them as mind-lessly as we accept the tug of gravity. Is it possibleto step outside of one's own cultural givens andinterpret evidence objectively in terms of the beliefsof the individuals and the society that producedthat evidence? If not, if we are irredeemably biasedby our own unconscious beliefs, if we are hopelesslyculture bound, then the entire enterprise of cul-tural interpretation should be avoided since ourinterpretations will inevitably be distorted. It is pos-sible to argue, as Arnold Hauser does in responseto the contention of Karl Marx that we see all thingsfrom the perspective of our social interest and ourview is therefore inevitably distorted, that once webecome aware of the problem we can struggleagainst subjectivity, against individual and class in-terests, and can move toward greater objectivity.7Awareness of the problem of one's own culturalbias is a large step in the direction of neutralizingthe problem, but material culture offers a scholarlyapproach that is more specific and trustworthy thansimple awareness. The study of systems of beliefthrough an analysis of artifacts offers opportunitiesto circumvent the investigator's own cultural per-

6 For an extended discussion of this issue, see Prown, "Styleas Evidence," esp. pp. 197-200.7 Arnold Hauser, "Sociology of Art," in Marxism and Art:Writingsin Aestheticsand Criticism,ed. Berel Lang and ForrestWilliams (New York: David McKay Co., 1972), p. 272.

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Mind in Matterspective. By undertaking cultural interpretationthrough artifacts, we can engage the other culturein the first instance not with our minds, the seat ofour cultural biases, but with our senses. "This af-fective mode of apprehension through the sensesthat allows us to put ourselves, figuratively speak-ing, inside the skins of invididuals who commis-sioned, made, used, or enjoyed these objects, to seewith their eyes and touch with their hands, to iden-tify with them empathetically, is clearly a differentway of engaging the past than abstractly throughthe written word. Instead of our minds makingintellectual contact with minds of the past, oursenses make affective contact with senses of thepast."8The methodology of material culture, with itsaffective approach that aspires to the objectivity ofscientific method, affords a procedure for over-coming the distortions of our particular culturalstance, and, of almost equal importance, it makesvisible the otherwise invisible, unconscious biasesof our own cultural perspective. Awareness of whatone normally takes for granted occurs only in theforced confrontation with another norm. For ex-ample, we become particularly aware of gravity asgravity when it is not there, as in our observationof astronauts working in a spacecraft. When weidentify with another culture through the affective,sensory apprehension of its artifacts, we have anopportunity to accept the other culture as the normand become aware of the differentness, the specialqualities, of our own culture. The culture beingstudied provides a platform, a new cultural stance,for a perspective on our culture. This can be ofinterest for its own sake, but specifically and prac-tically in terms of the study of material culture,increasing awareness of the biases of one's own cul-tural perspective helps achieve objectivity in sub-sequent investigations.The fact is that cultural perspective is only aproblem or liability to the extent that one is una-ware or unable to adjust for it. Indeed, it is ourquarry, the cultural patterns of belief, of mind, thatwe seek.Final NoteA disclaimer should be entered regarding the com-pleteness of what can be learned from material cul-ture. In certain instances-prehistoric or preliter-ate societies, for example-artifacts constitute theonly surviving evidence, so there is little choice butto use them as best one can to determine cultural

8 Prown, "Style as Evidence," p. 208.

values as well as historical facts. But it would be adelusion to assume we acquire complete access tothe belief systems of a culture through its materialsurvival. Cultural expression is not limited tothings. But the techniques of material cultureshould be part of the tool kit of the well-equippedcultural scholar. The obverse of this disclaimer isthe argument advanced here: although the studyof artifacts is only one route to the understandingof culture, it is a special, important, and qualita-tively different route. An investigation that ignoresmaterial culture will be impoverished.

Theoretical BackgroundCultureand SocietyThe definition given at the beginning stated thatthe study of material culture can be considered amethodological branch of cultural history or cul-tural anthropology. Material culture is the object-based aspect of the study of culture. As with cul-tural history and cultural anthropology, the studyof material culture touches on the allied concernsof social history and social anthropology. A society,a group of interdependent persons forming a sin-gle community, has a culture, a set of beliefs. Socialhistory and social anthropology study the relation-ships between individuals or groups of individualsin a society, especially the patterns and details ofthe daily existence of large subgroups as definedby class, race, religion, place of residence, wealth,and so forth. Cultural history and cultural anthro-pology study the peculiar achievements, especiallyintellectual, that characterize a society, such as art,science, technology, religion. Obviously there aresignificant areas of overlap. Society and culture areinextricably intertwined, and their study cannotand should not be isolated except for analyticalpurposes.Cultural history and cultural anthropology,with their sister subjects of social history and socialanthropology, thus constitute a field-of-interestumbrella that arches over the study of material cul-ture.9 The theoretical underpinnings of the studywill be noted in the sections that follow but are notexplored extensively in view of their complexityand the introductory nature of this essay.

9The location of material culture within the broader con-fines of cultural and social history and anthropology does not,however, preclude the utilization in the study of material cultureof investigative techniques normally associated with other fieldsand disciplines. These techniques will be discussed later.

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WinterthurPortfolioStructuralism nd SemioticsThe fundamental purpose of the study of materialculture is the quest for cultural belief systems, thepatterns of belief of a particular group of peoplein a certain time and place. The methodology is tosome extent structuralistn its premise that the con-figurations or properties of an artifact correspondto patterns in the mind of the individual produceror producers and of the society of which he or theywere a part.Modern linguistic theory has made us aware ofthe significance of language as the manifestationof man's capacity, indeed compulsion, to imposestructure on the world and his experience of it.Man's structuring, apparent in language, is the onlyreality he knows. His reality is relative, endlesslychanging, true only for the moment; it is the em-pirical shadow of a hypothetical underlying per-manent universe, a world of ideas, a unified field.The reality man experiences is created by man, andlanguage, the naming of that reality, is a manifes-tation and measure of the current structure of real-ity in any given place and time. It is therefore sig-nificant cultural evidence as the reflection of man'smental structuring. But language is not solely hu-man. Animals communicate by arrangements ofsounds and, in the case of dolphins, for example,may have languages. Perhaps more special to manthan language is the capacity to make implementsand, more special yet, objects for aesthetic gratifi-cation. There is a language of form as there is alanguage of words; a naming through making asthere is a naming through saying. That man ex-presses his human need to structure his worldthrough forms as well as through language is abasic premise of the structuralist approach to ma-terial culture.10The methodology of material culture is alsoconcerned with semiotics n its conviction that arti-facts transmit signals which elucidate mental pat-terns or structures. Complementing the structur-alist premise and semiotic promise of theinterpretation of artifacts is the knowledge thatartifacts serve as cultural releasers. Perceivers inother societies who have a different mix of culturalvalues, some in concert and some at variance withthose of the producing society, respond positivelyto certain artifacts or aspects of artifacts while ne-

10A measure of the potency of the language of form is therole that matter-and man's experience of the physical world-plays in language. This is obviously true with poetic imageryand metaphor, where concretions vivify abstractions, and in theimagery of vernacular expressions which articulate and exposefundamental human perceptions of the realities of existence.

glecting others. This is why an object or an entirecategory of objects falls in and out of fashion. Theobject stays relatively the same, but people changeand cultural values change. From the time it is cre-ated, an artifact can arouse different patterns ofresponse according to the belief systems of the per-ceivers' cultural matrices. The sequence of syn-chronic patterns that could be triggered by an ar-tifact resembles the sequence of frames in a motionpicture; in theory, if we could retrieve all the pat-terns, we would have a film of history. In practice,only a few patterns are accessible, primarily thoseof the original fabricator and the modern per-ceiver. Artifacts, then, can yield evidence of thepatterns of mind of the society that fabricatedthem, of our society as we interpret our responses(and nonresponses), and of any other society in-tervening in time or removed in space for whichthere are recorded responses.DeterminismThe fundamental attitude underlying the study ofmaterial culture is, as with most contemporaryscholarship, a pervasive determinism. his statementmay seem to belabor the obvious, but a strict de-terminism not only underlies the other theoreticalaspects of the study of material culture but alsodictates the methodological procedures outlinedbelow whereby, through a variety of techniques, anobject is unpacked. The basic premise is thatevery effect observable in or induced by the objecthas a cause. Therefore, the way to understand thecause (some aspect of culture) is the careful andimaginative study of the effect (the object). In the-ory, if we could perceive all of the effects we couldunderstand all of the causes; an entire culturaluniverse is in the object waiting to be discovered.The theoretical approach here is modified, how-ever, by the conviction that in practice omniper-ception leading to omniscience is not a real possi-bility.External information-that is, evidence drawnfrom outside of the object, including informationregarding the maker's purpose or intent-plays anessential role in the process. Such an approach isinclusive, not exclusive.

Although the fundamental concern of materialculture is with the artifact as the embodiment ofmental structures, or patterns of belief, it is also ofinterest that the fabrication of the object is a man-ifestation of behavior, of human act. As notedabove in the discussion of culture and society, beliefand behavior are inextricably intertwined. Thematerial culturalist is, therefore, necessarily inter-ested in the motive forces that condition behavior,

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Mind in Matterspecifically the making, the distribution, and theuse of artifacts. There is an underlying assumptionthat every living being acts so as to gratify his ownself-interest as he determines that interest to be atany given moment. This is an inevitable by-productof the fundamental concern with cause and effect.Thus such issues as the availability of materials, thedemands of patronage, channels of distribution,promotion, available technology, and means of ex-change, which require the investigation of externalevidence, are pertinent.

MethodologyHow does one extract information about culture,about mind, from mute objects? We have beentaught to retrieve information in abstract form,words and numbers, but most of us are functionallyilliterate when it comes to interpreting informationencoded in objects. Several academic disciplines,notably art history and archaeology, routinely workwith artifacts as evidence and over the years havebuilt up a considerable amount of theoretical andmethodological expertise. Work done in thesefields is often directed inward, toward the accu-mulation and explication of information requiredby the discipline itself. In the history of art thistakes the form of resolving questions of stylisticandiconographic influence, of dating and authorship,of quality and authenticity. In archaeology it is thebasic task of assembling, sorting, dating, and quan-tifying the assembled data. But art history and ar-chaeology also have fundamental concerns with thecultures that produced the objects, and the meth-odologies of these two fields, to the extent that theyprovide means for the interpretation of culture,are essential to material culture. At present theyare the two disciplines most directly relevant to theactual work of investigating material culture. But,as they are usually defined, they are not adequateto the total task. The exploration of patterns ofbelief and behavior, in an intellectual borderlandwhere the interests of humanities and social sci-ences merge, requires an openness to other meth-odologies, including those of cultural and socialhistory, cultural and social anthropology, psycho-history, sociology, cultural geography, folklore andfolk life, and linguistics. But the approach to ma-terial culture set forth below dictates that thesebroader concerns and methodologies not be broughtinto play until the evidence of the artifact itself hasbeen plumbed as objectively as possible. Thereforethe first steps are most closely related to the basic

descriptive techniques of art history and archae-ology, and in this there is more overlap with thenatural than with the social sciences. The initialdescriptive steps in the approach to objects resem-bles fieldwork in a science such as geology, anddescription can also involve the use of scientificequipment.The method of object analysis proposed belowprogresses through three stages. To keep the dis-torting biases of the investigator's cultural per-spective in check, these stages must be undertakenin sequence and kept as discrete as possible. Theanalysis proceeds from description,recording theinternal evidence of the object itself; to deduction,interpreting the interaction between the object andthe perceiver; to speculation, framing hypothesesand questions which lead out from the object toexternal evidence for testing and resolution."DescriptionDescription is restricted to what can be observedin the object itself, that is, to internal evidence. Inpractice, it is desirable to begin with the largest,most comprehensive observations and progress sys-tematically to more particular details. The termi-nology should be as accurate as possible; technicalterms are fine as long as they can be understood.The analyst must, however, continually guardagainst the intrusion of either subjective assump-tions or conclusions derived from other experi-ence.This is a synchronic exercise; the physical objectis read at a particular moment in time. The objectis almost certainly not identical to what it was whenit was fabricated; time, weather, usage will all havetaken their toll. At this stage no consideration isgiven to condition or to other diachronic techno-logical, iconographic, or stylistic influences.Substantialanalysis.Description begins with sub-stantial analysis, an account of the physical dimen-sions, material, and articulation of the object. Todetermine physical dimensions, the object is mea-

1 The issue of sequence undoubtedly needs further study.I am aware that the insistence upon strict adherence to a par-ticular series of steps seems rigid and arbitrary,an uncalled-forfettering of the investigator. Yet, I have come to appreciate thevirtues of sequence empirically on the basis of considerable class-room experience with artifact analysis. It simply works better.The closer the sequence suggested below is followed, especiallyin regard to the major stages, and the greater the care takenwith each analytical step before proceeding, the more pene-trating, complex, and satisfying the final interpretation. Ob-viously, the procedure is time-consuming, and there is a naturalimpatience to move along. My experience has been, however,that this should be resisted until the analysis is exhausted andthe obvious next question requires advancing to the next step.

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WinterthurPortfoliosured and perhaps weighed. The degree of pre-cision depends on the interests of the investigator.If he will be considering a series of objects, a certainamount of precision is desirable, given the possiblesubsequent significance of and need for quantifi-cation. However, it is not desirable to carry decimalsto the point of losing an immediate sense of di-mension in a welter of numbers; real signifi-cance may lie in general measure, as with Glassie'sdiscovery of the modal importance of spans andcubits in the vernacular architecture of Virginia.12Next comes a description of the materials-whatthey are, how extensively they are used, and thepattern of their distribution throughout the object.Finally, the ways in which the materials are puttogether in the fabrication of the object, the artic-ulation, should be noted. For example, with fabricsone would look at the weave; with metals, the weld-ing, soldering, riveting; with wood, the dovetails,dowels, miterjoints, mortise-and-tenon joints, glue.Substantial analysis is a descriptive physical in-ventory of the object. It is achieved with the assis-tance of whatever technical apparatus is appropri-ate and available. Simple tape measures and scales,ultraviolet lamps and infrared photographs, orcomplex electron microscopes and X-ray defrac-tion machines are allbasicallyenhancements of one'sabilityto perceive and take the measure of the phys-ical properties and dimensions

of the object.13Content.The next step in description is analysisof content. The investigator is concerned simplywith subject matter. This is usually a factor onlywith works of art or other decorated objects. Theprocedure is iconography in its simplest sense, areading of overt representations. In the case of apainting, this may simply be what is represented,as if the work were a window on the world (or onsome kind of world). Content may include deco-

12 Henry Glassie, FolkHousing in Middle Virginia:A StructuralAnalysisof HistoricArtifacts(Knoxville: University of TennesseePress, 1975).13 The procedures outlined here for collecting internal evi-dence have other significant applications. Physical analysis, in-cluding the use of scientific apparatus, can provide crucial in-formation in regard to authenticity. Other procedures notedbelow, notably formal analysis, can also be exceedingly usefulin determining authenticity. These applications of the meth-odology can take place at any time, but it is preferable for theissue of authenticity to be resolved before the analysis proceedsbeyond description. f a material culture investigator is to arriveat cultural conclusions on the basis of material evidence, thespecimen being studied must be an authentic product of theculture in question. The investigator must determine what as-pects of the objects, if any, are not authentic products of thepresumed culture. A fake may be a useful artifact in relationto the culture that produced the fake, but it is deceptive inrelation to the feigned culture.

rative designs or motifs, inscriptions, coats of arms,or diagrams, engraved or embossed on metal,carved or painted on wood or stone, woven in tex-tiles, molded or etched in glass.Formal analysis. Finally, and very important, isanalysis of the object's form or configuration, itsvisual character. It is useful to begin by describingthe two-dimensional organization-lines and areas-either on the surface of a flat object or in elevationsor sections through a solid object.14 Next comes thethree-dimensional organization of forms in space,whether actual in a three-dimensional object orrepresented in a pictorial object. Subsequently,other formal elements such as color, light, and tex-ture should be analyzed with, as in the case of theinitial description of materials, an account of theirnature, extent, and pattern of distribution (rhythm)in each case. Determination of the degree of detailmust be left to the discretion of the investigator;too much can be almost as bad as too little, theforest can be lost for the trees.DeductionThe second stage of analysis moves from the objectitself to the relationship between the object and theperceiver. It involves the empathetic linking of thematerial (actual) or represented world of the objectwith the perceiver's world of existence and expe-rience. To put it another way, the analyst contem-plates what it would be like to use or interact withthe object, or, in the case of a representational ob-ject, to be transported empathetically into the de-picted world. If conditions permit, he handles, lifts,uses, walks through, or experiments physically withthe object. The paramount criterion for deductionsdrawn from this interaction is that they must meetthe test of reasonableness and common sense; thatis, most people, on the basis of their knowledge ofthe physical world and the evidence of their ownlife experience, should find the deductions to beunstrained interpretations of the evidence elicitedby the description. If these deductions are notreadily acceptable as reasonable, they must be con-sidered hypothetical and deferred to the next stage.Although the analyst in the deductive stagemoves away from a concern solely with the internalevidence of the object and injects himself into theinvestigation, the process remains synchronic. Justas the object is only what it is at the moment of

14 The procedures of formal analysis summarized brieflyhere will be familiar to any art historian. They are not, however,arcane, and investigators need not be specially trained. Formalanalysis is a matter of articulating and recording what one sees,preferably in a systematic sequence as suggested here.

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Mind in Matterinvestigation, and as such may be more or less dif-ferent than what it was when it was made, so toothe analyst is what he is at the moment of investi-gation. Ten years hence he might respond differ-ently to the object because of different interestsand a different mix of life experiences near thesurface of conscious awareness. The particular en-counter between an object with its history and anindividual with his history shapes the deductions.Neither is what they were nor what they may be-come. Yet the event does not occur within a vac-uum. The object is at least in some ways what it wasor bears some recognizable relationship to what itwas; the same, although less germane, is true ofthe investigator. The object may not testify withcomplete accuracy about its culture, but it can di-vulge something. It is the analyst's task to find outwhat it can tell and, perhaps, deduce what it canno longer tell.Sensoryengagement.The first step in deductionis sensory experience of the object. If possible, onetouches it to feel its texture and lifts it to know itsheft. Where appropriate, consideration should begiven to the physical adjustments a user would haveto make to its size, weight, configuration, and tex-ture. The experience of architecture or a town-scape would involve sensory perceptions whilemoving through it. If the object is not accessible,then these things must be done imaginatively andempathetically. In the case of a picture, the en-gagement is necessarily empathetic; the analystprojects himself into the represented world (or, inAlois Riegl's sense, considers that the pictorial spacecontinues into the viewer's world of existence) andrecords what he would see, hear, smell, taste, andfeel. 15Intellectualengagement.The second step is intel-lectual apprehension of the object. With a tool orimplement this is a consideration of what it doesand how it does it, and in such cases may need toprecede or accompany the sensory engagement.The degree of understanding at this stage (priorto the admission of external evidence) depends onthe complexity of the object and the analyst's priorknowledge and experience. It is unnecessary to ig-nore what one knows and feign innocence for theappearance of objectivity, but it is desirable to test

15 See Sheldon Nodelman, "Structural Analysis in Art andAnthropology," in Structuralism, d. Jacques Ehrmann (GardenCity,N.Y: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1970), p. 87. This splendidarticle sets forth succinctly the basis for contemporary structuralanalysis in the early art historical work of the German schoolof Strukturforschung,specially as initiated by Riegl and devel-oped by Guido von Kaschnitz-Weinberg, and the anthropologiestructuraleof Claude Levi-Strauss.

one's external knowledge to see if it can be deducedfrom the object itself and, if it cannot, to set thatknowledge aside until the next stage.In the case of a pictorial object, there are anumber of questions that may be addressed to andanswered by the object itself, especially if it is rep-resentational. What is the time of day? What is theseason of the year? What is the effect on what isdepicted of natural forces such as heat and cold orthe pull of gravity? In the relation between thedepicted world and our world, where are we po-sitioned, what might we be doing, and what role,if any, might we play? How would we enter pictorialspace? What transpired prior to the depicted mo-ment? What may happen next?Emotionalresponse.Finally, there is the matter ofthe viewer's emotional response to the object. Re-actions vary in kind, intensity, and specificity, butit is not uncommon to discover that what one con-sidered a subjective response is in fact widelyshared. A particular object may trigger joy, fright,awe, perturbation, revulsion, indifference, curios-ity, or other responses that can be quite subtly dis-tinguished. These subjective reactions, difficult butby no means impossible to articulate, tend to besignificant to the extent that they are generallyshared. They point the way to specific insightswhen the analyst identifies the elements noted inthe descriptive stage that have precipitated them.I have stressed the importance of attemptingto maintain rigorous discreteness and sequence inthe stages of object analysis. In fact, this is difficultif not impossible to achieve. Deductions almost in-variably creep into the initial description. Theseslips, usually unnoted by the investigator, are un-desirable since they undercut objectivity. But inpractice, while striving to achieve objectivity and tomaintain the scientific method as an ideal, the in-vestigator should not be so rigorous and doctrinairein the application of methodological rigor as to in-hibit the process. Vigilance, not martial law, is theappropriate attitude. Often an individual's subjec-tive assumptions are not recognized as such untilconsiderably later. In fact, it is instructive in regardto understanding one's own cultural biases, one'sown cultural perspective, to mark those assump-tions that remain undetected the longest in thedescriptive stage. These are often the most deeplyrooted cultural assumptions.SpeculationHaving progressed from the object itself in de-scription to the interaction between object and per-ceiver in deduction, the analysis now moves com-

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WinterthurPortfoliopletely to the mind of the perceiver, to speculation.There are few rules or proscriptions at this stage.What is desired is as much creative imagining aspossible, the free association of ideas and percep-tions tempered only, and then not too quickly, bythe analyst's common sense and judgment as towhat is even vaguely plausible.Theoriesand hypotheses.The first step in specu-lation is to review the information developed in thedescriptive and deductive stages and to formulatehypotheses. This is the time of summing up whathas been learned from the internal evidence of theobject itself, turning those data over in one's mind,developing theories that might explain the variouseffects observed and felt. Speculation takes placein the mind of the investigator, and his culturalstance now becomes a major factor. However, sincethe objective and deductive evidence is already inhand, this cultural bias has little distorting effect.Indeed, it is an asset rather than a liability; it fuelsthe creative work that now must take place. Becauseof cultural perspective, it is impossible to respondto and interpret the object in exactly the same wayas did the fabricating society, or any other societythat may have been exposed to and reacted to theobject during its history and perigrinations. Wherethere is a common response, it provides an affectiveinsight into the cultural values of another society.Where there is divergence, the distinctive culturalperspective of our society can illuminate unseenand even unconscious aspects of the other culture.There was gravity before Newton; there was eco-nomic determinism before Marx; there was sexbefore Freud. We are free to use the insights af-forded by our cultural and historical perspective,as long as we do not make the mistake of assigningintentionality or even awareness to the fabricatingculture. Our cultural distance from the culture ofthe object precludes affective experience of thosebeliefs that are at variance with our own belief sys-tems, but the process now begun can lead to therecovery of some of those beliefs. That is a goal ofthe exercise.

Programof research.The second step in the spec-ulative stage is developing a program for valida-tion, that is, a plan for scholarly investigation ofquestions posed by the material evidence. Thisshifts the inquiry from analysis of internal evidenceto the search for and investigation of external evi-dence. Now the methodologies and techniques ofvarious disciplines can be brought into play ac-cording to the nature of the questions raised andthe skills and inclinations of the scholar.The object is not abandoned after the prelim-

inary analysis-description, deduction, specula-tion-is complete and the investigation has movedto external evidence. There should be continualshunting back and forth between the outside evi-dence and the artifact as research suggests to theinvestigator the need for more descriptive infor-mation or indicates other hypotheses that need tobe tested affectively.

Investigation of External EvidenceAllied DisciplinesPursuing a program of research in material culturebased on questions and hypotheses arising fromartifact analysis involves the techniques and ap-proaches of any of a dozen or more subjects ordisciplines divided between the humanities and thesocial sciences.16 The following can or do utilizeartifacts evidentially: archaeology, cultural geog-raphy, folklore and folk life, history of art, socialand cultural anthropology, and social and culturalhistory. Several others that do not to any substantialdegree are linguistics, psychohistory, and psychol-ogy. Since the study of material culture as a distinctdiscipline (rather than as a part of art history orarchaeology) is relatively recent and the theoreticalsubstructure is still being formulated, the list ofallied disciplines is probably not complete.The different relationships the allied disciplinesbear to material culture need clarification. In re-gard to the three disciplines that do not use objects,the'relationship is one-sided; material culture doesnot contribute significantly to, but profits from,techniques and insights of linguistics, psychohis-tory,and psychology.17Conversely, one subject areathat does use artifacts, folklore and folk life, profitsfrom, but does not make a readily definable ordistinctive methodological contribution to, materialculture. Folklore and folk life seems out of placeon the list since it refers to a broad area of inves-tigation; as a field rather than a discipline, it is the

16 There is some question in academic circles whether socialand cultural history belong to the humanities or to the socialsciences. This perhaps suggests the lessening usefulness of adistinction between the study of human beliefs, values, and his-tory on the one hand and the study of human behavior on theother, and the need for a new term to encompass those disci-plines that study the interaction of human belief and behavior,whether historical or contemporary.17 Inasmuch as the essential purpose of material culture isthe quest for mind, psychohistory holds particular promise, butas yet the methodologies of this equally new (and more contro-versial) approach are as rudimentary as those of material cul-ture.

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Mind in Matteropposite of material culture which is a disciplineand not a field. In addition to utilizing most of theother disciplinary approaches listed here, studiesin folklore and folk life have made especially ef-fective use of material evidence, inasmuch as ma-terial culture is particularly useful for any investi-gation of nonliterate or quasiliterate societies orsegments of societies.The relationship of material culture to otherdisciplines that use artifacts is one of common orparallel interests rather than interdependence. Asnoted above, social and cultural history, social andcultural anthropology, and, it might be added, so-ciology can view material culture as simply a meth-odological subbranch to be utilized when appro-priate.Cultural geography has an especially close con-nection with material culture. The explanation maybe that, since cultural geography deals directly withthe shaping influence of man's mind on his physicalenvironment, it is essentially material culture writlarge. As with material culture, its primary evidenceexists in the form of both artifacts and pictorialrepresentations. Cultural geography may be de-fined as an important branch of material culture(as with art, all cultural geography is material cul-ture, but not all material culture is cultural geog-raphy); in time the two subjects may turn out to beaspects of a single discipline. For the moment thestudy of each is in its infancy and their preciserelationship remains to be determined.Art Historyand ArchaeologyI turn now to the two areas of scholarship that havehad the longest working experience with materialculture-art history and archaeology. The initialstep in the analytical process, the physical descrip-tion of objects (including the use of technical ap-paratus), is common to both these fields. Moreoverthe most obvious methodological steps away fromthe internal evidence and into external evidencealso spring from, although they are not limited to,these fields.

Quantitativeanalysis.Quantitative analysis, morecommon to archaeology than to art history, is mostfrequently the extension of descriptive physicalanalysis to other objects in order to determine thedistribution, in time and in space, of certain forms,materials, or modes of construction. Quantitativestudy can also use the original object and otherslike it for considering abstract questions, such asthe relationship of objects to patrons or users vis-a-vis class, religion, politics, age, wealth, sex, placeof residence, profession, and so on. For example,

a student in my material culture seminar, RachelFeldberg, investigated one mid-eighteenth-centuryConnecticut desk-and-bookcase. She began by not-ing the number of apertures, then she consideredhow the openings might have been used by theoriginal owner and hypothesized that they were forsorting and storing papers. Given the desk-and-bookcase's functional associations with reading andwriting, its division into upper case and lower case(as in typefaces), and the possible use of the lowersection as a press (as in "linen press"), her thoughtsturned to printing. She speculated that if envi-sioned in a horizontal plane, this particular desk-and-bookcase had the same number of openingsas did a printer's tray. This suggested alphabet-ization, with the usual conflation of certain letters(p/q, x/y/z), and the use of the apertures for sys-tematic filing. A quantitative survey of similar desk-and-bookcases would help to confirm or negate herhypothesis.18 The development of computer tech-nology makes possible a range and variety of quan-titative research previously unmanageable.Stylisticanalysis. The other two aspects of thedescriptive stage, stylistic analysis and iconography,also lend themselves to broader diachronic andgeographic consideration. The search for stylisticinfluences or sources is a basic art historical pro-cedure. Within the broader framework of materialculture, tracing stylistic influence has considerablepotential. For example, New England in the six-teenth century had few if any gravestones. Withthe beginning of European settlement in the sev-enteenth century, gravestones appeared in thecoastal towns; subsequently their use spread up theriver valleys and across the countryside. Sincegravestones are often inscribed with considerabledata regarding the deceased, a corpus of subjectinformation can be assembled about age, sex, re-ligion, profession, and residence. Gravestones alsohave a formal design component. Analysis of theevolution and spread of gravestone styles in NewEngland, previously a stylistic tabula rasa, mightlead to a significant study of the dispersion of style,of how formal information is disseminated in a

18 This example is simplified for illustrative purposes andshould not be interpreted as reductive either of the possibilitiesfor quantification studies or of the scope of Feldberg's inquiry.Most quantitative studies would deal with a much larger numberof variables, as indeed would Feldberg's study of desk-and-book-cases if actually undertaken. Also, her investigation into externalevidence led to various other issues not apposite here such asthe use of letters of credit in the eighteenth century which mightbe filed in the bookcase; the velocity of correspondence of aNew England businessman; locks and safekeeping; and the issueof reconciling gentlemanliness and commerce.

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WinterthurPortfoliogiven culture.19 Like radioactive isotopes injectedinto the bloodstream of a cancer patient, the grave-stones would make visible the culture and its pat-tern of diffusion.

Iconology.Iconography is also a basic art histor-ical procedure for the investigation of art influ-encing art. There is a gain in research potentialwhen iconography moves to iconology and studiesare made of the intellectual matrix-the web ofmyth, religion, historical circumstance-thatspawned the legends and imbue the iconographicelements with their intellectual and symbolic power.The study of iconology leads ineluctably to thestudy of semiotics; all objects, not only works of artwith highly developed narrative, imagic, meta-phoric, and symbolic content, are the transmittersof signs and signals, whether consciously or sub-consciously sent or received. And the interpreta-tion of cultural signals transmitted by artifacts iswhat material culture is all about.Another student in my seminar, Kimerly Ror-schach, investigated an eighteenth-century Con-necticut tall clock. Traditional research into exter-nal evidence, which is part of any investigation intomaterial culture, led to estate inventories in an at-tempt to determine the normal placement of suchclocks and to prove patterns of distribution byeconomic status. Similarly, clockmakers' accountbooks were consulted for information about shoppractices. But the deductive and speculative stagesof object analysis framed qualitatively differentquestions and hypotheses. The tall clock stands slimand erect, slightly larger than human scale. It hashuman characteristics, and yet it is both less andmore than human. It has a face behind which asurrogate brain ticks relentlessly. It is not capableof independent life, yet once wound its mechanismticks on and its hands move without rest. The hu-man occupants of a house are mortal with an al-loted span of time to use or waste while the clockmeasures its irretrievable passage. Could the clockhave played a metaphorical role as the unblinkingtoller of time who watches the inhabitants of thehouse, the agent of some extrahuman, divinepower? A student in another course, Joel Pfister,analyzed a Victorian coal-fired parlor stove, a verydifferent object. A useful black imp who ate coalvoraciously and had to be emptied (its fecal ashesa material by-product in contrast to the abstractoutput of the clock), who would inflict a nasty burnon the unwary and could, if untended, destroy the

19See James Deetz, In Small ThingsForgotten:TheArchaeologyof EarlyAmericanLife (Garden City, N.Y: Anchor Press/Double-day, 1977), pp. 64-90.

house, the stove was not a celestial watcher but aniron Caliban that needed itself to be watched. Howdoes one explore the mental landscape, the beliefs,to validate or deny such speculations? Sermons,private diaries, poetry, and fiction are among thesources for the investigator seeking not only factsbut also the hints or suggestions of belief. Even ifsuch hypotheses or speculations remain unproved,they are not necessarily invalid.

Observations on the Categories of ArtifactsAlthough all man-made things are, in theory, usefulevidence of cultural mind, in practice different cat-egories of material yield different kinds of infor-mation in response to different investigative tech-niques. Some categories are responsive to familarscholarly methodologies; some seem obdurate andmute. This final section reviews the categories ofthe material of material culture and considers theirevidential promise.ArtThe fine arts in general have two advantages asmaterial for the study of material culture. One,already discussed, is the applicability of the expe-rience and methodologies of an existing discipline,the history of art. The other is that objects of artpossess considerable underlying theoretical com-plexity (as opposed to technical or mechanical com-plexity), embodying by definition aesthetic andeven ethical decision making.20 On the otherhand, as noted in the discussion of veracity, theself-consciousness of artistic expression makes artless neutral as cultural evidence than are mundaneartifacts. Moreover, there is a special problemconnected with the consideration of works of artas cultural evidence, what might be called the aes-thetic dilemma.Hauser has argued that there is no relationshipbetween an object's aesthetic value and its culturalsignificance. Each is judged by different criteria,and each set of standards is perfectly valid as longas the two are not confused. It is self-deluding toconsider an object aesthetically better because it hascultural potency, or to elevate an object as a culturaldocument because it accords with our sense of aes-thetic quality. The aesthetic dilemma arises when

20"The more complex an object is, the more decisions itsdesign required, the more a particular mind in operation canbe discovered behind it" (Henry Glassie, "Folkloristic Study ofthe American Artifact," in Handbook of AmericanFolklore,ed.Richard Dorson [forthcoming]).

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Mind in Matteran analytical approach breaks down the complex-ity of a work of art into simple categories and inso doing destroys the aesthetic experience irretriev-ably.21The question is whether the analytical pro-cedures of material culture wreak this kind of aes-thetic damage.The initial steps of the methodology proposedhere are completely descriptive and do not com-promise the aesthetic response. Close examinationof the object accords with accepted procedures foraesthetic evaluation. And the second stage of de-ductive and interpretative analysis involves objec-tive procedures that only enhance and magnify fa-miliarity,understanding, and aesthetic appreciation.Danger lies in the third stage-speculation. Theaesthetic dilemma does not in fact arise from anal-ysis; it arises from speculation. The aesthetic ex-perience of a work of art (or music or literature)can be affected, even permanently altered, by ex-ternal associations-a distasteful experience at thetime of perception, the intrusion of a parody, anunsolicited, uncongenial interpretation. Specula-tion, especially by an "expert," can color, perhapspermanently, the perception of others. Regardlessof the validity of the interpretation, the state ofmind of the listener or reader is altered, innocenceis lost, what has been said cannot be unsaid, theaesthetic experience is irredeemably changed.Students of material culture who have appliedthe analytical techniques, including speculation,have in fact found their aesthetic pleasure in theobject enhanced, not compromised. But aestheticdamage is done not to the interpreter, for whomthe speculations are arrived at freely, but to hisaudience. This, however, is one of the pitfalls inthe play of ideas, especially in the area of aestheticcriticism. Speculation is essential to a democracy ofideas, and the danger of restricting ideas or asso-ciations is much more serious than the occasionalaesthetic damage caused by their expression. Imag-inative critical interpretation may change an objectirretrievably,but our ideas and our perceptions arecontinually being altered by new ideas and percep-tions. That is life. The "aesthetic dilemma" turnsout on close inspection to be less a real problemand more in the order of normal intellectual grow-ing pains.DiversionsIn attempting to classify artifacts, I initially estab-lished a miscellaneous category for things, such asbooks, toys and games, prepared meals, and the

21 Hauser, "Sociology of Art," pp. 274-76.

accoutrements of theatrical performance, that didnot fit into the other obvious categories. These ob-jects share the quality of giving pleasure, or enter-tainment to the mind and body, and the categoryhas an affinity with, although separate from, art.This is a category in the process of definition andfurther discussion of it must be deferred.AdornmentAdornment, especially clothing, has, like the ap-plied arts, the advantage of touching on a widerange of quotidian functions and of embodying arelatively uncomplicated partnership of functionand style that permits the isolation and study ofstyle. The potency of this material as cultural evi-dence can be tested by the simple act of criticizingsomeone's clothes; the reaction is much more in-tense than that aroused by comparable criticism ofa house, a car, or a television set. Criticism of cloth-ing is taken more personally, suggesting a high cor-relation between clothing and personal identity andvalues. Although personal adornment promises tobe a particularly rich vein for material culture stud-ies, to date little significant work has been donewith it.Modificationsof theLandscapeThe most essential quality of an object for the studyof material culture, after survival, is authenticity.The optimum object is the gravestone because itis geographically rooted and attended by a greatdeal of primary data; we are quite secure in at-taching it to a particular cultural complex. Therehas been little or no faking of gravestones and onlya limited amount of recarving or relocating. Al-though an individual gravestone can be consideredas sculpture, gravestones and graveyards (or cem-eteries) fundamentally belong to a broader cat-egory, modifications of the natural landscape. Ar-chitecture, town planning, and indeed all aspectsof the human-shaped landscape (cultural geog-raphy) share with gravestones the same quality ofrootedness that ties artifacts to a particular fabri-cating culture. Although lacking the inscribed dataof grave markers, architecture has much greatercomplexity. Having been built for human occu-pancy, it responds in very direct ways to people'sneeds. Glassie has observed that historically ori-ented folklorists have concentrated on architecturebecause the material survives, it is geographicallysited, and it is complex. It is both a work of art anda tool for living, combining aesthetic with utilitariandrives at a variety of conceptual levels.22Town and22Glassie, "FolkloristicStudy," p. 15.

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WinterthurPortfoliocity planning, that is, architecture on a larger scale,share these qualities. In the case of less complexalterations in the physical landscape a distinctionmust be made between conscious shaping, as inplowing or the construction of a stone wall, andsimple behavioral consequences, such as accumu-lations of animal bones indicative of eating habits.AppliedArtsApplied arts (furniture, furnishings, receptacles),like architecture, are a partnership of art and craft,of aesthetic appeal and utility.23They lack the root-edness of architecture and, except in the case ofmaterial retrieved archaeologically, present greaterhazard in associating objects with their originatingculture. Applied arts, however, have an advantagein their simplicity of function which makes it easierto isolate that potent cultural indicator, style. Asdiscussed above in Cultural Perspective, he funda-mental values of a society are often unexpressedbecause they are taken for granted.24 As a result,they are manifest in style rather than in content.Stylistic expression can be affected by functionalutility or conscious purposefulness. The configu-ration of a tool or machine is almost completelydictated by its use; the configuration of a story ora play or a painting may be similarly conditionedby its content or message. In architecture and theapplied arts form and function are partners. Wherethe function is simple and constant, as with teapotsor chairs, it can be factored out. The remainingvariable is style, bespeaking cultural values and at-titudes in itself and in its variations across time,space, class, and so forth.There is, of course, significant cultural evidencein the utilitarian aspect of artifacts. Both architec-ture and the applied arts, by their use in a widerange of daily activities, especially domestic, arebearers of information about numerous, some-times quite private, reaches of human experience.Another student in my material culture course,Barbara Mount, studied a seventeenth-centuryBoston trencher salt. We take salt for granted be-cause our contemporary (largely processed) dietmore than satisfies our requirements. Yetthe phys-iological need for salt is fundamental; if deprivedof it we, like all animals, would have severe physical

23 The English usage of the term appliedarts is preferable tothe American decorativearts for material culture purposes. Theterm is intended to describe objects whose essential characteris that they combine aesthetic and utilitarian roles. Since thenoun arts common to both terms takes care of the aestheticaspect, it seems sensible to have the descriptor emphasize utility,that is, appliedrather than decorative.24 See also Prown, "Style as Evidence," pp. 69-71.

and mental problems. Early economies developeda salt trade. Salt containers historically occupied aplace of honor at the dinner table, and it matteredwho was seated above or below the salt. Salt appearsfrequently in biblical imagery, representing desic-cation and purity. People dream of salt. Human lifeemerged from brackish pools, the saline content ofwhich is encoded in the human bloodstream. Salthas ritual functions associated with baptism; saltwater is put on the infant's lips in Catholic baptis-mal rites; the forms of early trencher salts derivefrom medieval and renaissance baptismal fonts.Many body fluids are salty-blood, urine, tears-and in some cultures are associated with fertilityrites. These scattered observations suggest the mul-tiple possibilities for cultural investigation that canarise from one simple applied arts object.DevicesDevices-implements, tools, utensils, appliances,machines, vehicles, instruments-constitute themost problematic and, to date, a relatively unpro-ductive range of artifacts for the study of materialculture. Much of the scholarship on devices hasbeen taxonomic, recording functional details andmechanical variations. Little writing has been cul-turally interpretive except on the automobile, amachine with powerful personal stylistic over-tones.25Theoretical writing that relates devices toculture has dealt with the stylistic modification ofmachine forms to make them culturally acceptableand pervasive images of technology in the popularmind.26 But there has been little cultural analysisof the devices themselves, and no theoretical lit-erature has as yet established a technological orscientific counterpart to the link between art andbeliefs.27 Certain devices have particular promisefor cultural interpretation. For example, clocks andwatches, linked with a significant aspect of everydayhuman experience-time-surely have cultural sig-nificance. Ocular devices-telescopes, microscopes,

25 For example, Roland Barthes, "The New Citroen," inMythologies, rans. Annette Lavers (1972; reprint ed., New York:Hill & Wang, 1978), pp. 88-90.26 John Kasson, Civilizing the Machine: Technology nd Repub-lican Values n America, 1776-1900 (New York: Grossman Pub-lishers, 1976), and Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden:Tech-nology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1965).27 Perhaps this will be achieved in time. Glassie speaks of theimportance of banjos as well as banjo playing for folklorists("FolkloristicStudy,"p. 4), but it remains to be seen whether thisassertion will be validated. Glassie had discussed banjos brieflyearlier in Patternin the MaterialFolk Cultureof the Eastern UnitedStates (1968; reprint ed., Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-vania Press, 1971), pp. 22-24, but did not follow through to anycultural interpretations there.

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Mind in Mattereyeglasses-also readily suggest themselves as ex-tensions of the fundamental human activity ofseeing. Although there may be cultural potency ina wide range of device materials, a question per-sists. Does the fact that they have been less suc-cessfully interpreted as cultural evidence than haveother categories of artifacts simply reflect the pres-ent state of scholarship and scholarly interest, orare there fundamental differences in the nature ofcertain artifacts that affect their value as culturalevidence? We will consider one aspect of this ques-tion in the conclusion.ConclusionWe have discussed the categories of the materialsof material culture in a sequence moving from themore aesthetic to the more utilitarian with, giventhe broad scope of the categories, considerableoverlap. Does the position of a general category ora specific artifact on such an aesthetic/utility scaleprovide any index of evidential promise?The cultural interpretation of artifacts is stilltoo young as a scholarly enterprise to permit finalor fixed generalizations regarding the comparativepotential of artifacts as evidence. But the weight ofscholarly evidence, if one simply compares the bodyof cultural interpretation in the literature of arthistory, architectural history, and the history of theapplied arts with the literature of the history ofscience and technology, suggests that it is the aes-thetic or artistic dimensions of objects, to whateverextent and in whatever form they are present, thatopen the way to cultural understanding. Thestraightforward statements of fact in purely utili-tarian objects provide only limited cultural insights.The fundamental reason why the cultural inter-pretation of works of art has been more fruitfulthan that of devices is the disparate character ofthe material itself. Art objects are the products ofthe needs of belief; devices are the products ofphysical necessity. Inasmuch as material culture isfundamentally a quest for mind, for belief, worksof art are more direct sources of cultural evidencethan are devices. Although devices clearly expresshuman attitudes and values in regard to achievingcontrol over the physical environment, the corre-spondence between the device and the need thatbrought it into existence is so direct that thereseems little need for further investigation. And yet,there are devices such as clocks and telescopes withclear cultural significance. Moreover, devices re-spond as well as the other categories of artifacts doto the analytical procedures outlined earlier in thisessay. Those procedures, especially in the descrip-

tive stage, are largely derived from the practice ofart history, and when artifacts are subjected to thatanalysis, they are analyzed as if they were works ofart. Where devices respond to this mode of anal-ysis-as, for example, in the perceptions of my col-league Margaretta Lovell regarding sewing ma-chines, buttons and switches,calculators and buses-they do so not in terms of what they do, but ratherin the way they are formed and the way in whichthey operate, that is, their style.If the cultural sig-nificance of a device is perceivable in its style ratherthan its function, then there is reason to concludethat, for purposes of material culture analysis, theaesthetic aspects of artifacts are more significantthan the utilitarian. Why this should be the case isexplained by Jan Mukarovsky.28Mukarovsky ob-serves that all products of creative human activityreveal intention. In the case of implements (hespeaks specifically of implements, but his argumentholds for all devices), that intention, purpose, oraim is directed externally, outside of the implementitself. An art object, on the other hand, is self-ref-erential; it is an aim, an intention in itself. Man isa user of an implement-he applies it externally;man is a perceiver of art-he refers it to himself.Virtually all objects have an artistic dimension; onlywith devices do we encounter a class of objects thatapproaches the purely utilitarian. Even there, mostdevices incorporate some decorative or aestheticelements, and every device can be contemplated asan art object, a piece of abstract sculpture, com-pletely apart from utilitarian considerations.It is characteristic of an implement that achange or modification affecting the way it accom-plishes its task does not alter its essential nature asa particular type of implement. But a change, evena minor change, in any of the properties of a workof art transforms it into a different work of art.Mukarovsky's example is a hammer. Viewed as animplement, a hammer that has its grip thickenedor its peen flattened is still a hammer; but the ham-mer as an art object, an organization of certainshapes and colors and textures, becomes a differentobject if the organization of design elements is al-tered, if the plain wooden handle is painted red orthe cleft in the claws is narrowed. The explanationfor this, and here we enter the realm of semiotics,derives from Mukarovsky's premise that every

28 Margaretta Lovell and I cotaught a course in materialculture. Jan Mukarovsky, "The Essence of the Visual Arts," inSemioticsof Art:Prague SchoolContributions, d. Ladislav Matejkaand Irwin R. Titunik (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), pp.229-44, and Structure,Sign, and Function: SelectedEssays, trans.and ed. John Burbank and Peter Steiner (New Haven and Lon-don: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 220-35.

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WinterthurPortfolioproduct of human activity has an organizing prin-ciple and a unifying intention. Different observersmay interpret that intention in different ways, butthe artist(s) had a single purpose in mind. It maybe unrealistic and unrealizable, indeed quixotic, fora maker to intend that his purpose be understoodby all perceivers equally-in the same way and inthe same degree as he understands it. Nevertheless,any fabricator must have that purpose, even un-consciously, in order to make. Therefore, objectsare signs that convey meaning, a mode of com-munication, a form of language. The object may,like words, communicate a specific meaning outsideof itself. This is the case with a content-filled artobject such as a magazine illustration, or with animplement, a device. Such objects relate to exter-nals. But a work of art that is self-referential, thatis, an artistic sign in and of itself rather than acommunicative sign relating to some outside func-tion, establishes understanding among people "thatdoes not pertain to things,even when they are rep-resented in the work, but to a certain attitude owardthings,a certain attitude on the part of man towardthe entire reality that surrounds him, not only tothat reality which is directly represented in thegiven case."29The art object is self-sufficient, andwhen apprehended evokes in the perceiver a cer-tain attitude toward reality which resonates withthe maker's attitude toward reality. Because we can-not really experience a reality other than the oneinto which we are locked in time and space, we canmake only limited use of an artifact as an infor-mational sign, as a referent outside of itself, as animplement. We are dependent upon the degree ofidentity between its original world and ours. Wemay still be able to use the hammer as a hammer,but we may not be able to cure illness with a sha-man's rattle. We can, however, use the work of artas an autonomous artistic sign, as an affective linkwith the culture that called it into being, becauseof our shared physiological experience as perceiv-ers and our sensory overlap with the maker andthe original perceivers. This is the gift and thepromise of material culture. Artifacts are disap-pointing as communicators of historical fact; theytell us something, but facts are transmitted betterby verbal documents. Artifacts are, however, ex-cellent and special indexes of culture, concretionsof the realities of belief of other people in othertimes and places, ready and able to be reexperi-enced and interpreted today.

29 Mukafovsky, "Visual Arts,"p. 237, and Structure,Sign, andFunction, p. 228.

Selective Bibliography

For more specificand comprehensivematerial culturebibliographies,ee theworksof SimonJ. Bronner,HenryGlassie,and ThomasJ. Schlereth istedbelow.General WorksBraudel, Fernand. Afterthoughtson Material CivilizationandCapitalism.altimoreand London:Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1977.. Capitalismand Material Life, 1400-180o. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1975.Bronner, Simon J. Bibliographyof AmericanFolk and Ver-nacularArt.Bloomington, Ind.: FolklorePublicationsGroup, 1980.

. "Concepts n the Study of MaterialAspectsofAmerican Folk Culture." Folklore Forum 12 (1979):133-72.."FromNeglect to Concept:An Introduction tothe Studyof MaterialAspectsof American Folk Cul-ture." FolkloreForum 12 (1979): 117-32.."ResearchingMaterialCulture:A SelectedBib-liography."Middle AtlanticFolklifeAssociationNewsletter,October 1981, pp. 5-12.Chavis,John. "The Artifactand the Study of History."Curator7 (1977): 156-62.Ferguson,E. "The Mind'sEye: NonverbalThought inTechnology." Science 197 (1977): 827-36.Fleming, E. McClung. "Artifact Study: A ProposedModel." n Winterthurortfolio , edited by Ian M. G.Quimby, pp. 153-73. Charlottesville: University Pressof Virginia, 1973.Foucault,Michel.TheOrder f Things.NewYork:VintageBooks, 1973.Giedion, Siegfried. Mechanization Takes Command.NewYork:Oxford UniversityPress, 1948.Glassie,Henry."Folkloristic tudy in the AmericanAr-tifact."In HandbookofAmericanFolklore,edited by Rich-ard Dorson,forthcoming.. "Meaningful Things and AppropriateMyths:The Artifact'sPlace n AmericanStudies." nProspects:An Annual of AmericanCulturalStudies,edited by JackSalzman, vol. 3, pp. 1-49. New York: Burt Franklin,1977.. Pattern in the Material Folk Cultureof the EasternUnitedStates.Philadelphia:Universityof PennsylvaniaPress, 1968.Hindle,Brooke."HowMuch s a Pieceof the True CrossWorth?" In Material Culture and the Studyof AmericanLife, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby, pp. 5-20. New York:W. W. Norton, 1978.Jones, Michael Owen. The Hand Made Object nd Its Maker.Los Angeles and Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1975.Kouwenhoven, John. The Arts in Modern AmericanCivi-

lization. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.

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Mind in MatterMayo, Edith. "Introduction: Focus on Material Culture."Journal of American Culture3 (1980): 595-604.Place, Linna Funk, Joanna Schneider Zangriando, JamesW Lea, and John Lovell. "The Object as Subject: TheRole of Museums and Material Culture Collections inAmerican Studies."AmericanQuarterly 6 (1974): 281-94.Quimby, Ian M. G., ed. Material Cultureand the StudyofAmericanLife. New York: W W. Norton, 1978.Schlereth, Thomas J. Artifactsand theAmericanPast.Nash-ville, Tenn.: American Association for State and Local

History, 1980.."Material Culture Studies in America: Notes to-ward a Historical Perspective."MaterialHistoryBulletin8 (1979): 89-98.Skramstad, Harold. "American Things: A NeglectedMaterial Culture." American Studies International o1(1972): 11-22.Smith, Cyril Stanley. Structureand Spirit:SelectedEssaysonScience,Art, and History.Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1981.Weitzman, David. Underfoot:An EverydayGuide toExplor-ing the American Past. New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1976.Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts Have Politics?"Daedalus109 (1980): 121-36.

Theoretical WorksStructuralism and SemioticsBarthes, Roland. CameraLucida: Reflectionson Photogra-

phy. New York: Hill & Wang, 1981.. Elements of Semiology.New York: Hill & Wang,1977.. Mythologies.Translated by Annette Lavers. NewYork: Hill & Wang, 1972.Blair, John G. "Structuralism and the Humanities."American Quarterly 30 (1978): 261-81.Coward, Rosalind, and John Ellis. Language and Materi-alism:Developmentsn Semiology nd theTheoryof the Sub-ject. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1977.Ehrmann, Jacques, ed. Structuralism.Garden City, N.Y:Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1970.Gardner, Howard. TheQuestforMind: Piaget, Levi-Strauss,and the Structuralist Movement. New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1973.Glassie, Henry. "Structure and Function, Folklore andArtifact." Semiotica 7 (1973): 313-51.Hawkes, Terence. Structuralismand Semiotics.Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.Kurzwell, Edith. The Age of Structuralism:Levi-StrausstoFoucault. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.Laferriere, Daniel. "Making Room for Semiotics." Aca-deme 65 (1979): 434-40.Levi-Strauss, Claude. StructuralAnthropology.New York:Basic Books, 1963.Martinet, Andre. "Structure and Language." In Struc-

turalism,edited by Jacques Ehrmann, pp. 1-9. GardenCity, N.Y: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1970.Matejka, Ladislav, and Irwin R. Titunik, eds. SemioticsofArt: Prague School Contributions.Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, 1977.Michaelson, Annette. "Art and the Structuralist Per-

spective." In On theFuture of Art, edited by Edward FFry, pp. 37-59. New York: Viking Press, 1970.Mukarovsky, Jan. Structure,Sign, and Function: SelectedEssays. Translated and edited by John Burbank andPeter Steiner. New Haven and London: YaleUniversityPress, 1978.Nodelman, Sheldon. "Structural Analysis in Art andAnthropology." In Structuralism,dited byJacques Ehr-mann, pp. 79-93. Garden City, N.Y: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1970.Piaget, Jean. Structuralism.New York: Basic Books, 1970.Trachtenberg, Alan. BrooklynBridge:Fact and Symbol.2ded. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,

1979.

MarxismAntal, Frederick. "Remarks on the Method of Art His-tory." In Marxismand Art, edited by Berel Lang andForrest Williams, pp. 256-68. New York: David McKayCo., 1972.Arvon, Henry. MarxistEsthetics. thaca and London: Cor-nell University Press, 1973.Barbaro, Umberto. "Materialism and Art." In Marxismand Art, edited by Berel Lang and Forrest Williams,pp. 161-76. New York: David McKay Co., 1972.Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Me-chanical Reproduction." In Marxism and Art, edited byBerel Lang and Forrest Williams, pp. 281-300. NewYork: David McKay Co., 1972.Fischer, Ernst. The Necessityof Art: A Marxist Appro

mind in matter

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