Page - 23 - in Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur - 1618–1918

Interdisciplinary Material Culture Studies and the Problem of Habsburg-Lorraine Representation 23 representation, or in some cases a calculated deviation from those requirements. The work of art can then be understood as a construction, a sign in the semiotic sense, or as a form of communication through symbols.3 It communicates as a sign much more than it represents how she actually looked or her activities on a specific occa- sion. Much recent scholarship on monarchical art takes this critical approach, and it can be applied to architecture and music as well: the chosen themes of a musical performance like an opera, for example, may reflect the symbolic identity of those who commissioned it or the projected identities of the public who attended its first performance. And architecture, as the city of Vienna abundantly demonstrates, con- veys profound ideals about a place, its sociopolitical structures, and its inhabitants. Both of these perspectives would enable an understanding of monarchical influ- ence in the Habsburg-Lorraine tradition. This essay adds to them by choosing as its starting point a different methodological framework: that of contemporary inter- disciplinary material culture studies. I shall argue that material culture offers not only a useful set of ideas for understanding specifically Habsburg-Lorraine mon- archical representation, but also that without acknowledging a material dimension to our scholarly inquiries generally, and an acknowledgment of the material basis to the meanings we derive from the objects of our study, our historical understanding will remain incomplete. Here the histories of art, music, and architecture can com- bine with recent scholarship in anthropology and archaeology to create a truly cross- disciplinary approach to cultural production. Given my scholarly concentration in mid–eighteenth-century European art, it is not surprising that I find the best case study of this process to be none other than court art commissioned under Empress Maria Theresa (1717–1780). Although artists thematized her rule in portraits and represented it in allegories, the manifestation of her power was also conveyed non- representationally, in ways which enabled subtle messages about her authority that suited her complex and sometimes confusing monarchical role.4 Recognizing this expands the definition of monarchical representation beyond simply the history of luxury and the history of imagery, and toward a history of materiality. It is my hope that in exploring these material possibilities, Maria Theresa might offer inspiration, as she has often done, for thinking in new ways about the relationship between art, power, and influence. Let us begin with a discussion of what ‘material culture’ might mean. Its definition varies according to discipline and scholarly tradition. At it simplest, material culture refers to the study of objects. Object studies have no single home in the academic geography; one can study objects in a multitude of disciplines, among them anthro- pology, archaeology, art history, sociology, history, and in the United States even literary studies adopted material culture into its activity through the development of