Page 53 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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practices. They are, therefore, active players in
the relationship between, on the one hand, ideas
MATERIAL COMPLEX
and intentions and, on the other hand material
things (objects). We may assume that these
Intentions of old Intentions of new
producers/consumers consumers paintings were produced for more than just a
Matter
material end, i.e. earning money. Likewise, on
the side of the consumers, presumably the Dutch
men who, in the nineteenth century, bought a
Condensation Physical object Evaporation
Chinese export painting in Canton thought
about how they would like to use it before they
obtained it. The idea that the buyer’s intention
was merely opportunistic and economic is quite
Ideas which formed New meanings given
the objects to objects possible, but that is certainly not the only
Time/Change of context motivation.
Ideas not only condense in objects, but also
evaporate from them. As well as condensation,
Fig. 2.11. Ter Keurs’ condensed. 54 Generally, there is a certain we learn from Ter Keurs’ model of material
model for the study of intention in making, receiving or buying an complex that, equally, we must study the
material culture. object. These intentions, which Ter Keurs calls opposite process of ‘evaporation’; namely, of
‘primary meanings’, come into focus for the extracting meanings and value from physical
producer as well as the user, or for me as the objects, when viewed or used in a different
researcher. 55 The exciting search for initial and context. (Figure 2.11.).
further intentions and motivations regarding In the case of heirlooms, paintings often move
commissioning and purchasing these kinds of from the first owner to the second and so on.
paintings is part of this ongoing research. The fact is that many of these paintings end up
However, they should not be considered as ‘first’ as long-term loans and sometimes as neglected
or ‘original’ meanings, because, in most cases, items in inaccessible museum basements. This
these are impossible to identify. 56 It is more fact clarifies something about the private
interesting to explain why and how Chinese valuation put upon them by their owners at that
export paintings in Dutch collections are time and, consequently, the constructed meaning
currently seen or used. Primary meanings on given to the particular painting. Ter Keurs calls
the side of the producer may somehow be this the ‘evaporation process’, in which change
internalised in Chinese export paintings, as of meaning is a process from matter to idea.
they are first made with an idea in mind. For The whole complex of the paintings and their
example, the idea to earn money or to paint the multiple meanings can be depicted as a ‘material
best ship portraits ever was materialised or complex’. In this complex, it is impossible to
condensed, in these paintings. This economic pinpoint determinations of value and meaning
idea or this professional attitude has been made accruement, because there were and will always
tangible and is condensed in matter. Ter Keurs be subjective attitudes towards them. Further-
calls this process a ‘material condensation,’ more, this research argues that along the total
a process that is, in fact, a simultaneous trajectory, from their production in the
externalisation and internalisation. 57 When nineteenth century to their consumption today,
people turn ideas into material things, this is the layering of these subjective attitudes forms
a process of externalisation. At the same time, the meaning and evaluation of these material
some scholars see this process (internalising objects, in casu Chinese export paintings in
ideas into matter) as a process of internalisation. Dutch museum collections. What other
Although my idea is that things have no brains explanation can be given for the multifarious
to actively internalise, they can evoke human nature of the museums where they are kept, for

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54 Ter Keurs 2006, 51-70. Pieter ter Keurs is the Head of Collections and Research Department of the National
Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. He holds the endowed chair in the Anthropology of Material Culture at Leiden
University's Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, where he teaches subjects including
material culture and heritage. Alongside theoretical research, his interests include the critical analysis of
collections, museums and museum history.
55 Ter Keurs 2006, 58.
56 Ibid. I agree with Ter Keurs that investigating original meaning is a rather useless academic exercise.
57 Ter Keurs 2006, 60-61.