RSS Feeds: The Allure Of Antiques
What is the real allure of antiques? On the surface, it is simple to find a rational explanation for those people that prefer to purchase an antique chest, for example. You kind of know without thinking why someone would rather go to a modern outlet or furniture store to buy a chest of drawers; even though the antique chest is…well…antique, it is still functional. You can fold your clean undershirts and keep them there. The thing fits in with the modern, factory-built furniture already in the house.
So, if the only difference is that the chest is old and considered vintage, function and design don't explain the allure. You can get an antique reproduction without the hassle of finding the real thing and if you confine your shopping within factory-built, mass-produced likenesses you will get the same function and aesthetic fit within your home. There has to be something else beyond form and utility that would cause a person to care enough to find out about furniture characteristics from different periods, consult others who make this knowledge their specialty, to spend weeks of Saturdays and Sundays to find that one piece that is right.
However, what if utility is out the window? What if only form remains to distinguish the ancient object? In other words, what if it has no use but to sit there, to be dusted around, to be kept up with? What if the thing was not a still-useful piece of vintage furniture, what if it were, let's say, a bag of antique marbles? Now, this is where the explanation of the antique's allure must be considered.
We attach meaning to objects. That antique chest or bag of old marbles is simply wood, glass and shine without a person wanting it, looking for it, finding it and lovingly keeping it. You can start to understand the real allure of antiques by understanding why you kept your grandfather's old writing quill, who by the way, kept it as something once belonging to his grandfather. The quill is no longer just a writing instrument, its usefulness long ago outdated. It is now a connection between generations. Someone that had a part of your DNA, someone who was your granddad's granddad that you never knew, but who he revered.
Continue this thought forward and beyond your own lineage. Notice the dog rings on the leg of a table from the 1600s. Did the master of the estate sit with his hounds at the dinner table and while reading at night? Was this common during that time? The stain on the old piece makes it real; a real person sat there with their dogs, maybe contemplating the next hunt. Maybe the beloved pet, long ago, was his only comfort?
You see, these old things are evidence of old stories, ones we'll never know. All we have left are the old things. Maybe we can coax a hint or clue of the story it contains by what we know of the period in which it was made, the craftsman that made it, or the place from which it came. It's worth the hunt…
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