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What is Material Culture?
In his book Material Culture Studies in America, Thomas Schlereth provides the following useful definition of Material Culture:
material culture can be considered to be the totality of artifacts in a culture, the vast universe of objects used by humankind to cope with the physical world, to facilitate social intercourse, to delight our fancy, and to create symbols of meaning....Leland Ferguson argues that material culture includes all "the things that people leave behind....all of the things people make from the physical world--farm tools, ceramics, houses, furniture, toys, buttons, roads, cities." (Schlereth 2)
Why Study Material Culture?
When we study material culture in conjunction with literature we wed two notions of "culture" and explore how they relate. The first notion of culture is what is often called "high culture"--that is "the general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic factors" and "lived culture"--the "particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group" (Storey 2). In a sense, material culture (as the objects of a lived culture) allows us to see how the intellectual ideas of the day were played out in the daily lives of people in that era.
Thus, as Schlereth explains, through Material culture (the study of artifacts) we can learn about the "belief systems--the values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions--of a particular community or society, usually across time. As a study, [material culture]...is based on the obvious premise that the existence of a man-made object is concrete evidence of presence of a human mind operating at the time of fabrication. The common assumption underlying material culture research is that objects made or modified by humans, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, reflect the belief patterns of individuals who made, commissioned, purchased, or used them, and, by extension, the belief patterns of the larger society of which they are a part" (Schlereth 3).
How Do I Study Material Culture?
Thomas Schlereth suggests a number of useful models for studying material culture that might be useful for us, but I would like to highlight the "Art History Paradigm" today, because it will also help you approach the paintings we are studying; however, I will suggest other less "high culture" modes of reading in the future.
The Art History Paradigm argues that the interpretative objective of examining the artifact is to "depict the historical development and intrinsic merit" of the artifact (Schlereth 42). If you are interested in doing an "art paradigm" reading of material culture you might look at an object an ask yourself the following questions (taken from Sylvan Barnet's A Short Guide to Writing About Art). (Notably, these are the same questions you should ask yourself about any art object.)
First we need to know information about the artifact so we can place it in a historical context, for example you might ask yourself:
1. What is my first response to the work?
2. When and where was the work made?
3. Where would the work originally have been seen?
4. What purpose did the work serve?
5. In what condition has the work survived? (Barnet 21-22)
In addition, if the artifact is a drawing, paintings, or advertisement, you might want to ask yourself questions such as these:
1. What is the subject matter? What (if anything) is happening?
2. If the picture is a portrait, how do the furnishings and the background and the
angle of the head or the posture of the head and body (as well as the facial expression, of course) contribute to our sense of the character of the person portrayed?
3. If the picture is a still life, does it suggest opulence?
4. In a landscape, what is the relation between human beings and earthbound, beneath
nature? Are the figures at ease in nature, or are they dwarfed by it? Are they the horizon, or (Because the viewpoint is low) do they stand out against the horizon and perhaps seem in touch with the heavens, or at least with open air? If there are woods, are these woods threatening or are they an inviting place of refuge? Exactly what makes these woods either threatening or inviting? Is there is a clearing, is the clearing a vulnerable place or is it a place of refuge from ominous woods? Do the natural objects in the landscape somehow reflect the emotions of the figures? (Barnet 22-23: for more questions, see pp. 23-24)
Search for Material Culture Under the Following Headings:
- Fashion (Godey's Lady's Book)
- Architecture
- Black Americana
- The Civil War
- Everday Household Objects
- Tool Chests (Smithsonian Exhibit)
- Quilts (Smithsonian Collections)
- Cook Books
- Money: Images of Women, Native Americans and African Americans (Smithsonian Exhibit), Coins (Smithsonian Exhibit)
OR see the Reed College American Studies' Program's
Other Material Culture Sites:
- Material Culture in Colonial Amercia
- Museum and Material Culture Studies Web Sites
- National Museum of American History