Subjectivity and the Cultural Constraints of Academic Literature in Material Culture: An Investigation into the Discussion of Pattern and Symbol in Persian Carpets

Abstract

This paper examines the academic literature on material culture, focusing on inherent cultural standpoints within the European tradition and the impossibility of arriving at an objective position. With regard to the study of the symbolism in Persian carpets, material science approaches the subject with a number of preconceived concepts that colour the interpretation it offers. Persian carpets have been interpreted within European art for over four hundred years, and this has led to a variety of concepts being integrated into the academic perception of them. In particular, it will be shown that methods of valuing Persian carpets over the course of the last century have come to dictate much of the basis on which their patterns and symbols are discussed. The article concludes that ultimately, material culture studies objects from within the confines of its own cultural environment, and does not offer an interpretation that is relevant to the culture in which those objects were created