The Descriptive Process

Assignment #1:  Object Description

In beginning to understand my object, titled “Grace’s Painting,” the first class assignment required me to describe it from a purely objective quantitative and qualitative perspective.  What is the object’s size and weight?  What is it made from and how was it made?  How is it decorated?  What is its intrinsic value?  Unfortunately, I will not be able to answer these questions until September 10^th when I can actually see my object.  I was provided a picture of the owner, Grace, but not the actual painting.  As a result, my post must veer from the original intentions of the assignment.

In an attempt to exercise my analytical skills, I wanted to at least describe what I observed in the photograph that I was provided.  Grace, a woman with long dark hair, is sitting down at a wooden table.  She is holding a small blue notebook with lined pages in her right hand.  She is wearing a striped tank top and green headband.  Some writing and a small sketch in black ink can be seen on the page of the notebook.  There is a woman, also with dark hair, sitting directly to Grace’s right.  The woman is wearing a nametag that distinguishes her from Grace.  The table is littered with plastic beverage bottles, two red solo cups, and a small bag, and a pen.  Grace’s mouth is partially open and her left hand is elevated and engaged in a position in front of the blue booklet.  Volumes of books are captured in the background.

The photograph provides some basic information about the owner but not the object itself.  I do not know if a stranger, someone important to Grace, or Grace herself created the painting.  I cannot determine its size, weight, or how much it cost to produce.  I can merely engage in a brief discussion of Grace’s painting in relation to Jules David Prown’s classification of artifacts in the article, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.”  Prown groups artifacts into six main categories—art, diversions, adornment, modifications of the landscape, applied arts, and devices.  Taking the title of my object as literal as possible, “Grace’s Painting” falls under the category of art.  The author asserts that the fine arts have both aesthetic value and cultural significance.  It is imbued with “the self-consciousness of artistic expression” and therefore has an additional complex element of analysis when compared to “mundane artifacts” (1988: 29).  Cited by Prown, Hauser argues that the aesthetic value and cultural significance are not linked and must be judged in different ways; aesthetics should not elevate or decrease the object’s cultural importance nor should its cultural importance impact the aesthetic value.

Prown also makes note that the aesthetic evaluation of a piece of fine art can be affected by external factors that may also affect how others perceive it.    In this assignment, the class was asked to evaluate an object’s aesthetics and physical attributes from a purely objective position.  I initially wanted to read into the photo; I typed statements such as, “The woman in the photo seems to be engaged in what Grace has to say due to her eye contact,” or “Grace is not directly looking at the woman so she is most likely talking to a table with multiple people.”  After rereading Prown’s methodology and his assessment of fine art, I went back and rewrote exactly what I saw in the photo and not what I inferred. Although I was not able to complete the assignment as intended, Prown’s article helped me objectively describe the photograph of Grace and will hopefully assist me in evaluating the object on Friday.

Cited:
Prown, Jules David. 

1988   Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.  In Material Life in America, 1600-1860.  Robert Blair St. George, ed.  Pp.17-37.  Boston: Northeastern University Press.