ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses the twin distinctions between objects and things, and between networks and meshworks, to explore some of the dynamics in material culture. James Elkins observes that many approaches to materiality in art history lack this faculty: one either gets too close, or too distant. The implication is that the closer one moves to such formalisations, the more one risks creating a 'formalised prescriptive model' for rather than a description of technical activities. This is an important point because it identifies a grey area in the use of the chaine operatoire as a methodological tool. On the one hand, it can be a descriptive tool for documenting multiple occurrences, there by facilitating comparison. In Kamares ware, fine pottery, mostly used for drinking and pouring, is carefully smoothed and decorated with a lustrous black slip, over which are added rectilinear and curvilinear motifs in white and red paint.
