European Journal of Marketing

Consumption Symbolism and Meaning in Works of Art: A Paradigmatic Case

Morris B. Holbrook,
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Morris B. Holbrook, (1988) "Consumption Symbolism and Meaning in Works of Art: A Paradigmatic
Case", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 22 Issue: 7, pp.19-36, https://doi.org/10.1108/
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 Consumption Symbolism and Symbolism and
Meaning in
Meaning in Works of Art: Works of Art

A Paradigmatic Case 19
by
Morris B. Holbrook*
Columbia University, New York

It's tricky trying to make sense of poetry,

it's much easier to write the stuff . . .
that is, if you've still got it in you . . .
Criticism is tough sledding.
You can't just dash off a few images here,
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a few rhymes there . . .

This is just the introduction.
Gardner in Howe. T., Painting Churches, [1, p. 66].

Recently, the attention of some consumer and marketing researchers has turned
towards phenomena associated with the consumption of artwork. Some studies
have addressed the nature of art marketing[2]. Others have dealt with the aesthetic
responses of art consumers[3,4]. Others have treated works of art as socialising
agents that contribute to people's acculturation into the ways of materialistic
consumption patterns [5]. And still others have focused on artistic creations as
sources of information about the nature of consumption processes that occur in
a particular culture [6,7,8].
The present paper pursues a rather different line of thought introduced by
Holbrook and Grayson[9]. Specifically, it adopts a contrasting perspective on the
reciprocal uses of artwork and marketing or consumption. Instead of asking what
works of art can teach us about art marketing or consumer aesthetics or
consumption acculturation or buying behaviour, it turns the tables and asks instead
what symbolic consumption as used by artists in their creations can tell us about
the meaning of artwork. In other words, it adopts a perspective diametrically
opposed to that characterising previous attempts to study the role of consumption
symbolism in artistic creation. Whereas others have studied the ability of art to
serve consumer and marketing research, the point of view advocated here
investigates the ability of marketing and consumption phenomena to serve artistic
ends by contributing to the meaning of a work of art.

*The author would like to thank Steve Bell, Mark Grayson and Sarah Holbrook for their helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this paper and to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Columbia
Business School's Faculty Research Fund.
 European It should be clear at the outset that, in pursuing this topic, we depart from the
Journal of positivistic canons often held up as ideals in research on marketing or consumer
Marketing behaviour. This does not imply that the author rejects scientific rigour but only
22,7 indicates that the study of consumption symbolism as a vehicle for meaning in
works of art has not yet reached a stage at which it can be subjected to systematic
empirical testing. Rather, this new area of enquiry finds itself still enmeshed in
20 the context of discovery (as opposed to justification) wherein theory development
must precede more rigorous theory testing[10,11]. Only after concepts and
hypotheses have been created can they be empirically validated via the hotly debated
criteria of positivism or postpositivism[12]. Here, we avoid that debate by operating
primarily at the level of conceptual development.
Towards that end, we may draw on the hermeneutic tradition — that is, the
use of critical interpretation — closely allied to the perspectives of
phenomenology[13], structuralism[14], semiotics[15], and the humanities[16].
Hirschman[17] has characterised this "scientific style" as "conceptual humanism"
and has emphasised its dependence on the use of introspection, metaphors, stories,
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and personal or subjective responses. Often, this approach proceeds via the in-
depth analysis of case examples, anecdotal evidence, or thought experiments.
Indeed, under some circumstances, a detailed account of a single case can provide
a suggestive richness of interpretation, akin to the ethnographer's "thick
description" and otherwise unavailable from a more cursory sweep over a range
of instances.
The present study follows this train of thought to undertake a detailed analysis
of consumption symbolism in a single work of art — namely, Tina Howe's play
entitled Painting Churches[1]. In no sense can this single play be taken as
"representative" of all artwork nor even all theatrical events nor even all recent
drawing-room comedies. Nor, in any sense, can the author's interpretation of the
meaning of symbolic consumption in this play be taken as "representative" of
other members of the theatrical audience in general or of those who have seen
this play in particular. But, in the present context, these limitations do not matter
very much. The purpose is not to show that plays always do affect their audience
in a certain way. In other words, the purpose is not, thus, to generalise. Rather,
the purpose is to show that a work of art can embody meanings associated with
the use of symbolic consumption. In short, the purpose is to demonstrate that
a given play carries its meaning for a particular viewer via its symbolic use of
consumer behaviour.

Painting Churches
Painting Churches deals not with the decoration of religious edifices, but rather
with a family of three Bostonians named Church — a mother (Fanny), a father
(Gardner), and their artistic daughter (Mags) who has come for a visit in order
to paint her parents' portrait. The action finds the elderly parents in the midst
of moving from their Beacon Hill home (which is now too large and expensive
for them to manage) to a much smaller house in Cotuit, the family's summer
retreat on Cape Cod (which is now better suited to their scale of living). Thus,
much of the movement and dialogue deal with the difficult questions of which objects
 to keep and which to throw away or sell. In this sense, the play is deeply concerned Symbolism and
with the issues of what to discard versus what to cherish — that is, the distinction Meaning in
between trash and treasures, junk and art, what perishes and what endures. It Works of Art
thereby becomes a vehicle for the thematic treatment of durability in consumption
and in life, the length of time over which things yield their characteristic value.
In short, we see two old people and their daughter experiencing agonising questions
about what has permanent value in their lives and what passes away with time. 21
Clearly, these questions use consumption symbolism as a sign system within which
to address deeper issues involving the nature of people and their lives.
This article will explore that consumption symbolism in an effort to interpret
its artistic meaning. This critical approach, as advocated here, has been used once
before in analysing the role of symbolic consumption in developing plot and character
in the film Out Of Africa[9]. Here, by contrast, the interpretation will be more
systematic, will follow a tighter structure, and will address one aspect of meaning
— namely, the manner in which consumption activities convey important opposing
aspects of the personalities and interactions that characterise the play's three central
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figures.
Specifically, each character — as well as the interactions among all three —
will be viewed as embodying a central dualism that is reflected in the portrayal
of both major and minor consumption experiences. This 4 x 2 x 2 schema appears
in Table I, which shows that each participant reveals a deep conflict or ambivalence
between two basic personality types or tendencies that appear as a recurrent
thematic contrast.

Characters and Thematic Minor encoding: Major encoding:

interactions contrast trivial consumption artistic consumption

Mother (Fanny) Materialistic, Hat Lampshade

status-conscious
Loving, caring Pair of galoshes House
Father (Gardner) Senile Overcoats Manuscript
Brilliant Parakeet (Toots)
Daughter (Mags) Rebellious Pair of underpants Crayon creation
Obedient Hairdo Art show
Interactions Indifference, Box of Family portrait:
(all three) dissociation saltines silly Table I.
Concrete Examples
Involvement, Cocktail hour Family portrait: of Consumption
solidarity serious Symbolism in
Painting Churches

Thus, the mother (Fanny) is torn between her compulsive need for material order
and social status versus her loving maternal and connubial affections. The father
(Gardner) copes with the anxieties of a brilliant mind gradually falling into senility,
absent-mindedness, and poor reality testing. The daughter (Mags) suffers from
 European an ambivalent clash between her feelings of resentful rebelliousness and her
Journal of eagerness to please and to win approval by submissive obedience. Moreover, the
Marketing interactions among all three characters swing between the poles of indifference,
22,7 or dissociation and deep interpersonal involvement or solidarity.
Each of these four polarities appears reflected in the play's consumption imagery.
This use of symbolic consumption occurs at both the major and minor levels. Table
22 I provides a concrete example of each.
As noted by content analysts concerned with communication, minor encoding
habits are often the most diagnostically telling aspects of a message [9]. Similarly,
rather minor consumption activities can often presage, reinforce, or recapitulate
an artwork's thematic development of character. In Painting Churches, these
symbolic uses of trivial consumption include a hat, a pair of galoshes, overcoats,
a pet parakeet, a pair of underpants, a hairdo, a box of saltines, and the cocktail
hour. By contrast, not surprisingly, the play's use of more major consumption-
related encoding habits tends to involve actual or metaphorical works of art. These
more major aspects of symbolic consumption include a lampshade, the house,
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an unfinished manuscript, a collection of books, a crayon creation, an art show,

and a family portrait (which has both silly and serious associations and which lends
its name to the play). Let us, therefore, discuss each of these concrete examples
in more detail.

Mother (Fanny)
The Hat
As the play opens, Fanny sits in her living-room surrounded by packing cartons,
going through pieces of the family silver, obsessed about what to keep and what
to sell, and all the while wearing a white slip, a pink bathrobe, and a red feathered
hat (which appears especially ridiculous in this context). Gradually, this hat becomes
the focus of attention as her general materialistic musings over the family heirlooms
(a set of Paul Revere tea spoons for which a distinguished looking man from the
Metropolitan Museum once offered to pay then US $50,000 and a big silver tray
so heavy that one can barely lift it) give way to a compulsive need to fantasise
about her newest sartorial acquisition (which she repeatedly admires by using
the silver tray, significantly, as a mirror and exclaiming, "God, this is a good looking
hat", p. 14). Here, all her most materialistic status-seeking impulses rise to the
surface as she regales Gardner with a prolonged story about the hat's obvious
monetary value (over US $50 or US $75 at the finest stores), its designer label
(Lily Daché), and best of all, its incredibly cheap price (85 cents at the local thrift
shop):
I found it at the Thrift Shop . . . It was on the mark-down table . . . See that? Lily
Daché! When I saw that label, I nearly keeled over right into the fur coats! (p. 14)
In this sense with her preposterous hat, all Fanny's less attractive materialistic
and status-seeking impulses appear vividly. She is revealed as a hopelessly unstylish
matron who constantly wears hats indoors even when they do not match any of
her other clothing and whose sartorial sense is guided entirely by a name on the
label. Ultimately, it turns out that Gardner's remarkably seedy bathrobe — bought
 for 50 cents at the same thrift shop also bears the Lily Daché name, thereby Symbolism and
deflating Fanny's pretentions towards style and elegance. Further, to drive this Meaning in
point home, Mags later provides a delicious caricature of her mother's bizarre Works of Art
adornment on another occasion:
you wore this . . . huge feathered h a t . . . I'll never forget it! It was the size of a giant
pizza with 20 inch red turkey feathers shooting straight up into the air . . . Everyone 23
looked up what with . . . your amazing hat which I was sure would take off and start
flying around the room (pp. 36-37).
Clearly, Fanny engages in an eccentric approach towards fashion that would be
charming were it not edged with a materialistic flavour that also permeates her
need for neatness, order, and dominance. Everywhere in the play, she rails against
anything disorderly that she cannot control — Mags' eating between meals, Mags'
childhood dining behaviour, Mags' sloppy clothes and unacceptable hairdo, the
messy papers and books in Gardner's study. The same utilitarian tendencies that
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cause her to care so much about the status implications of her hats cause her
to worry excessively about any aspect of her life or environment that is out of order:

Please don't get crumbs all over the floor (p. 20). . . Darling, coats do not go on the
floor (p. 32). . . Please watch where you're dropping things, I'm trying to keep some
order around here (p. 43). . . You should see all the books in there . . . and the papers!
There are enough loose papers to sink a ship! (p. 61).

The Pair of Galoshes

But Fanny has another competing side to her personality. Sometimes she emerges
as a warm, loving mother or fond, caring wife whose deepest desire is to share
experiences with her family. Thus, in an especially touching scene, she speaks
a near-soliloquy on the subject of Gardner's old galoshes and how they remind
her of the snow storms when she and he would take a sledge to the Common
and slide down the hill with him lying on top of her. These memories, as
encapsulated by the pair of boots, matter deeply to her and result in a decision
to keep the galoshes. At the end of her speech, she signifies the durability of
her tender feelings for Gardner by putting the pair of galoshes in the box of things
to keep and announcing, as she had earlier in the case of the Paul Revere tea
spoons, "Cotuit":

Look at these old horrors, half the rubber is rotted away and the fasteners are falling
to pieces . . . God, these bring back memories! . . . Daddy would stop writing early,
put on these galoshes and come looking for me, jingling the fasteners like castanets.
It was a kind of mating call, almost . . . It was so romantic . . . Then Daddy would
lie down on the sledge, I'd lower myself on top of him, we'd rock back and forth a
few times to gain momentum and then . . . WHOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHH . . .
down we'd plunge like a pair of eagles locked in a spasm of love making. God, it was
wonderful! . . . The city whizzing past us at 90 miles an hour . . . the cold . . . the
darkness . . . Daddy's hair in my mouth . . . Sometimes he'd lie on top of me. That
was fun. I liked that even more . . . Gar's galoshes. Cotuit (pp. 30-31).
 European The Lampshade
Journal of At the level of art, the utilitarian side of Fanny's personality is reflected in her
Marketing one creative achievement — namely, a lampshade she has made out of an old
22,7 engraving of the Grand Canal that she has coloured with crayons in a businesslike
fashion (her answer to "painting churches") before meticulously cutting out all
the windows, street lamps, and gondola lights with her sewing scissors so that
24 the lamp can shine through. Naturally, in her case, all this artistic effort has been
lavished on a functional object in a creation that comes as close to painting-by-
numbers as you can get without actually buying a commercially produced art set.
"It's really amazing", Mags comments; "I mean, you could sell this in a store"
(pp. 26-27). Thus, the lampshade indicates at once Fanny's utilitarian bent, her
domestic competence, and her creative emptiness. Her most artistic effort is
ineffably mundane. When she draws the blinds in order to show it off to Mags,
Gardner (the poet) significantly trips in the dark and hits his shin. "Well, we'd
better get some light in here before someone breaks their neck", Fanny concludes
with an uncharacteristic lapse in grammar (p. 27).
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The House
Fanny's softer, more motherly and wifely instincts surface through the manner
in which she has managed her house. Throughout the play, all action occurs within
one stage setting — namely, the family's large and attractive living-room. This
location constantly reminds us of Fanny's role and competent performance as a
homemaker. Here, she has conspicuously lavished her most generous efforts as
decorator. We see "fine old furniture" and "tasteful family objets d'art" mixed
in with "oddities from second-hand stores" and "exotic handmade curios" (p.
9). The effect is cluttered, but all the more homely for that. We must therefore
empathise with the agony that Fanny feels over the dismantling of the house and
with her anguish over the existential dilemma of what to keep and what to discard.
Unfortunately, as an artistic statement of love, Fanny's homemaking instincts
often conflict with the creative endeavours of others. In other words, her maternal
role (the house) often clashes with her utilitarian inclinations (the lampshade).
Hence, she is repeatedly predisposed to regard the creative efforts of others as
junk, refuse, or garbage. For example, she treats Gardner's latest manuscript
as if it were trash, flinging it disrespectfully into a packing box:
FANNY enters with an armful of papers which she drops into an empty carton . . .
She exits for more papers . . . FANNY enters with another batch which she tosses
on top of the others . . . She exists for more . . . She enterswitha larger batch of
papers and heads for the carton . . . lifting the papers high over her head (pp. 64-65,
italics removed).
Gardner reacts with horror:
HEY, WHAT'S GOING ON HERE . . . SEE HERE, YOU CAN'T MANHANDLE
MY THINGS THIS WAY!. . . THAT'S MY MANUSCRIPT!. . . YOU DON'T JUST
THROW EVERYTHING INTO A BOX LIKE A PILE OF GARBAGE! THIS IS A
BOOK, FANNY. SOMETHING I'VE BEEN WORKING ON FOR TWO YEARS (pp.
64-65).
 Earlier, in a parallel scene, Fanny had treated Mags' own beloved crayon creation Symbolism and
as if it were also disposable refuse, all because it symbolised Mags' poor table Meaning in
manners and her bad eating habits: Works of Art
WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN HERE?. . . MAGS, WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?
. . . IT'S FOOD . . . IT'S ALL THE FOOD SHE'S BEEN SPITTING OUT! OH,
GARDNER, IT'S A MOUNTAIN OF ROTTING GARBAGE! (p. 53). 25
Father (Gardner)
The Overcoats
Gardner is a gentle man of warm feelings and sensitive insights. He has previously
led the life of a great creative poet and literary scholar. But now, as his brilliance
fails him, he succumbs increasingly to encroaching senility characterised by absent-
mindedness and loss of contact with the world around him. This mental failing
manifests itself repeatedly in his inability to remember what to do with his overcoat.
Thus, at one point, Gardner enters after a walk outside and vacantly drops his
raincoat on the floor. When chastised by his wife (inevitably), Gardner twice goes
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to the closet to hang it up, but cannot remember what he is doing long enough
to finish the task without her help. The stage directions spell out his state of
confusion quite explicitly:
GARDNER . . . rises, but forgets where he's supposed to go . . . He stands
motionless, the coat over his arm . . . GARDNER exits to the closet . . . returns
with a hanger . . . The coat still over his arm, he hands FANNY the hanger . . . puts
his raincoat back on and sits down... He goes back to the closet; a pause . . . returns
with yet another hanger (pp. 33-34, italics removed).
In another, even more poignant scene, Gardner absent-mindedly puts on layer
upon layer of clothing, forgetting completely about what he is doing:
GARDNER. (Is wearing several sweaters and vests, a Hawaiian holiday shirt, and a
variety of scarves and ties around his neck. . .) HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH
MY OVERCOAT?! . . . But that's my overcoat! (He grabs it out of the carton.) I've
been wearing it every day for the past 35 years! . . . (puts it on over everything else)
There's nothing wrong with this coat! . . . (She holds up a sports jacket) . . .
GARDNER. (grabs it and puts it on over his coat) Oh no you don't (p. 40).
Much later, he suddenly realises that he has grown rather warm: "Gee, it's hot
in here! (starts taking off his coat)" (p. 42). In short, Gardner's use of overcoats
provides a vivid emblem of his dwindling acumen.

The Parakeet (Toots)

But Gardner retains just enough of his former brilliance to render his character
human and lovable. Nowhere do these qualities emerge more clearly than when
he lavishes what is left of his languishing poetic gifts on trying to teach his parakeet
(Toots) to recite Gray's Elegy. This undertaking reveals the depth of his devoted
patience and meticulous dedication to his (now faltering) craft. Hence, it is a
triumphant moment when, after Mags fails repeatedly to master Gray's difficult
syntax, the bird cage appears on its way to Cotuit, and its occupant masterfully
articulates:
 European The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
Journal of The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
Marketing And leaves the world to darkness and to me (p. 76).
22,7
Here, we learn, in retrospect, that there was some truth in Fanny's endearing
26 comic caricature of her husband's daily routine:
He just holes up in that filthy study with Toots. God, I hate that bird! Though actually
they're quite cunning together. Daddy's teaching him Gray's Elegy. You ought to see
them in there, Toots perched on top of Daddy's head, spouting out verse after verse
. . . Daddy, tap tap tapping away on his typewriter. They're quite a pair (pp. 24-25).

The Manuscript
The same clash between Gardner's former brilliance and present vacuity appears
in the contrast between his collection of books and his own faltering manuscript,
about which he spends much of his time fantasising to no avail. Having lost his
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creative gift for poetry, Gardner has turned to criticism (one of many digs at
reviewers and critics to be found in this play): "Now that he can't write his own
poetry, he's trying to explain other people's" (Fanny, p. 66). However, unable
to sustain a single line of thought for more than a few moments, Gardner's criticism
emerges as a voluminous sequence of quotations and scattered comments leading
nowhere: "It doesn't make sense. It's just fragments . . . pieces of poems" (Mags,
p. 66). These pour out of him in uncontrolled spurts and torrents, paralleling the
incontinence that causes him to wet himself at awkward moments:
FANNY. (to MAGS) He's incontinent now too. He wets his pants, in case you haven't
noticed . . . Don't you think it's funny? Daddy needs diapers . . . My poet laureate
can't hold it in! (p. 69).
Indeed, the manuscript itself, toward which he directs so much hopeless fantasy,
has no page numbers so that when he accidentally drops its pages (something
that he does continually), he has no way to return them to their proper order.
But he carries on anyway, implicitly recognising that their sequence makes little
difference any more. Again, the stage directions tell the story:
GARDNER enters . . . holding a stack of papers which keep drifting to the floor . . .
looking around the room, leaking more papers . . . dropping more papers . . . papers
spilling . . . picking up the papers as more drop . . . A whole sheaf of papers slides
to the floor, he dives for them (pp. 11-12, italics removed).
As a potent symbol of Gardner's lost intellectual capacity, the shuffled pages of
his failed manuscript provide a concrete metaphor for his mental disorder. Even
more painful is the barely disguised contempt with which Fanny treats this visible
manifestation of his inner torment:
MAGS. It's so cruel. . . you're so . . . incredibly cruel to him . . . I mean, YOUR
DISDAIN REALLY TAKES MY BREATH AWAY! YOU'RE IN A CLASS BY
YOURSELF WHEN IT COMES TO HUMILIATION (p. 70).
 As already noted, in one heart-rending scene, Fanny indiscriminately throws Symbolism and
handfuls of his gigantic pile of papers into a cardboard packing box, trying Meaning in
desperately to impose some order on the world of chaos that threatens to envelop
his study and its dreaded contents: "WE NEED A STEAM SHOVEL FOR THIS"
Works of Art
(p. 64). He protests vehemently at first, but soon forgets his objections and settles
into a childish game that consists of throwing pieces of his manuscript through
the air toward the box. Naturally, most of them miss and end up in a heap on 27
the floor where he then goes to lie down, lost in his own already half-forgotten
revery. Fanny sums up the implications of this scene with cruelly devastating
accuracy:
Paint us . . .?! What about opening your eyes and really seeing us . . .? Noticing what's
going on around here for a change! It's all over for Daddy and me. This is it! . . .
It can get pretty grim around here, in case you haven't noticed . . . Daddy, tap, tap,
tapping out his nonsense all day; me traipsing around to the thrift shops trying to amuse
myself . . . If you want to paint us so badly, you ought to paint us as we really are.
There's your picture . . . Daddy spread out on thefloorwith all his toys and me hovering
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over him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself! (p. 73).

The Books
In vivid contrast to Gardner's own unfinished and unfinishable manuscript is his
collection of great and beautifully bound books of poetry. These volumes provide
his only tenuous link with past intellectual glories. For most of the play, they remain
offstage in his book-lined study, but their influence extends everywhere, especially
in Gardner's inveterate habit of spouting perfectly recalled stanzas of poetry from
Stevens, Frost, Dickinson, Yeats, and others on any and every occasion. Like so
many victims of Alzheimer's disease, he maintains total recall of distant memories
such as Yeats' The Song of Wandering Aengus:
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun (p. 56).
By contrast, true to her pro-utilitarian and anti-aesthetic leanings, Fanny displays
perfect insensitivity to the meaning of Gardner's cherished possessions. At one
point, she carries stacks of books into the living room and deposits them with
loud whacking thumps on the floor in what turn out to be big piles of all the green
books on one side and all the maroon books on the other. She proudly explains
the ineluctable logic of her categorisation scheme:
All your books that are maroon are in this pile . . . and your books that are green
in that pile . . .! I'm trying to bring some order into your life for once. This will make
unpacking so much easier (p. 63).
 European To complete this revelation of her lack of intellectual sensitivity, Fanny comments
Journal of on the inconvenience of a small striped volume that does not belong with either
Marketing pile: "Now what about this awful striped thing? . . . Can't it go . . . ? . . . There
22,7 are no others like it" (p. 63). Gardner quietly and sadly asks her to open the
striped book and to read the dedication. She reads:
28 To Gardner Church,
you led the way.
With gratitude and affection,
Robert Frost (p. 63).

The Daughter (Mags)

The Pair of Underpants
On one level, Mags is a frightened and rebellious child who has fled her mother's
oppressive demands for orderly and conventional behaviour and moved to New
York (where else?) where she teaches advanced classes in painting at the Pratt
Institute and successfully mounts her own art shows at the leading galleries. The
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first and most vivid concretisation of Mags' rebellious streak that we encounter
appears in a story she relates concerning her inability to remember to put on
her underpants and its embarrassing result during a recent interview:
Wednesday, the day of my meeting with Max Zoll, I forgot to put on my underpants
. . . I mean, there I was, racing down Broome Street in this gauzy Tibetan skirt when
I tripped and fell right at his feet . . . SPLATT! My skirt goesflyingover my head
and there I am . . . everything staring him in the face (p. 18).

The Hairdo
Mags' tendency towards rebellious dress is balanced, by a deep need for approval
and a consequently genuine concern for appearing to be the obedient and well-
behaved daughter. When she arrives with a slightly new shade of hair, the effects
on her parents are predictable. Her father admires it extravagantly (as he does
almost everything about her): "Well, it's damned attractive if you ask me . . .
damned attractive" (p. 20); "And I like that new red hair of yours. It's very
becoming" (p. 27). Her mother disparages it without reservation (as she does
almost everything about Mags): "GOOD LORD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO
YOUR HAIR?!" (p. 18); "No one in our family has ever had red hair, it's so common
looking . . . WHY ON EARTH DID YOU DYE YOU HAIR RED, OF ALL
COLOURS . . .?!" (p. 20). Indeed, in one outburst, Fanny manages to imply that
all of Mags' inadequacies are epitomised by the colour of her hair:
You'll never catch a husband looking that way. Those peculiar clothes, that God-awful
hair . . . You're not getting any younger. Before you know it, all the nice young men
will be taken and then where will you be?. . . All by yourself in that grim little apartment
of yours with those peculiar clothes and that bright red hair (p. 45).
Meanwhile, however, Mags remains almost childishly eager to please, constantly
repeating that she only touches it up a little bit: "I didn't dye my hair, I just added
some highlight" (p. 20); "I told you, I hardly touched it" (p. 27); "MY HAIR
IS NOT BRIGHT RED!" (p. 45). Hence her hairdo has become the battle ground
 for a contest of wills between mother and daughter — ironically, with the mother Symbolism and
insisting on its interpretation as an act of hostility and with Mags disclaiming this Meaning in
symbolic meaning and denying any aggressive or disobedient intention. Works of Art
The Crayon Creation
At the level of art, Mags' major rebellious statement is the crayon creation that
she erected long ago as a child when she was sent to her room as a punishment 29
for bad table manners. In an obviously depressed and anorexic state of mind, she
amused herself by melting Crayolas on the hot radiator in her room until the entire
apparatus was covered by wonderful colours that symbolised the trickles of green
and brown food she longed to spit out like toothpaste (or oil colours?) onto her
dinner place:
Once I'd melted one, I was hooked! I finished off my entire supply in one night, mixing
colour over colour until my head swam. . .I'd never felt such exhilaration!. . . Every
week I spent my allowance on crayons. I must have cleared out every box of Crayolas
in the city! . . . AFTER THREE MONTHS THAT RADIATOR WAS . . .
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SPECTACULAR! I MEAN, IT LOOKED LIKE SOME COLOSSAL FRUIT CAKE,

FIVE FEET TALL (p. 52).
Thus Mags had found her own semiotic code — her own material signs — to
express her resentment and frustration over her mother's food-related rigidity.
Inevitably, Fanny discovered this monument to disobedience, interpreted its
significance more or less correctly, and ruthlessly destroyed this first example
of Mags' artistic gifts with complete disregard of the devastating consequences
for her daughter's delicate ego:
IT'S FOOD! . . . IT'S ALL THE FOOD SHE'S BEEN SPITTING OUT! OH,
GARDNER, IT'S A MOUNTAIN OF ROTTING GARBAGE . . . IT'S GOT TO BE
DESTROYED IMMEDIATELY! THE THING'S ALIVE WITH VERMIN! . . . JUST
LOOK AT IT! . . . IT'S PRACTICALLY CRAWLING ACROSS THE ROOM! (pp.
53-54).
But what Fanny could not understand or did not care to understand was that,
whatever its latent motivations, the crayon creation that she destroyed was also
itself a deeply meaningful token of Mags' emergent ability to find a means for
artistic self-expression. Even now, still wounded, Mags feels the need to assert
self-protectively that she is special, that she has talent:
Of course in a sense you were right. It was a monument of my cast-off dinners, only
I hadn't built it with food... I found my own materials. I was languishing with hunger,
but oh, dear Mother . . . I FOUND MY OWN MATERIALS Well, what
did you know about my abilities . . .? You see, I had . . . I mean, I have abilities . . .
(struggling to say it) I have abilities. I have . . . strong abilities. I have . . . very strong
abilities. They are very strong . . . very very strong (p. 54).

The Art Show

A more buoyant spirit characterises Mags' description of her first art show in Soho.
Here, she was being a good girl. Here, she had painted a portrait of one of the
family's friends, Mrs Millicent Crowninshield, and had dutifully invited her parents
 European to come to New York to see it and the other paintings. For her, painting a family
Journal of acquaintance was doubtless a sign of filial devotion and daughterly obedience to
Marketing the mores of Boston society. But, characteristically, her mother ruins the occasion
22,7 by proclaiming that the painting does not, in fact, resemble her friend:
MY GOD, WHAT'S MILLICENT CROWNINSHIELD DOING HERE? . . . THAT'S
30 MILLICENT CROWNINSHIELD! I GREW UP WITH HER. SHE LIVES RIGHT
DOWN THE STREET FROM US IN BOSTON. BUT IT'S A VERY POOR
LIKENESS, IF YOU ASK ME! HER NOSE ISN'T NEARLY THAT LARGE AND
SHE DOESN'T HAVE SOMETHING QUEER GROWING OUT OF HER CHIN! (p.
37).
Here again, then, we witness the inevitable clash of a mother torn between status
obsession and loving maternal instincts versus a daughter caught in the conflict
between a desire to rebel and a need for obediently seeking her parents' approval.
Interactions
How, then, do these conflicted characters behave when they engage with each
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other in family interactions? Predictably, as we have anticipated, there are again

two sides to the story.
The Box of Saltines
On the one hand, all three characters habitually talk past one another, paying little
attention to what each other is saying. This tendency sometimes reaches amazing
proportions, as when Mags emerges from the kitchen munching on the contents
of a box of saltine crackers (over the strong protests of her mother who has prepared
a "perfectly beautiful leg of lamb" for lunch and fears that Mags will spoil her
appetite, thereby recalling their contests over food when Mags was a child).
Nonetheless, Mags begins to tell her parents excitedly about her "wonderful news"
— namely, that she has got her own one-woman show at the Castelli gallery where
her paints will hang "IN THE SAME ROOMS THAT HAVE SHOWN
RAUSCHENBURG, JOHNS, WARHOL, KELLY, LICHTENSTEIN, STELLA,
SERRA, ALL THE HEAVIES" (p. 22). In spite of Mags' enthusiasm, however,
neither of her parents pay much attention to what she is saying, a fact that she
herself barely seems to notice. Partly, her father is daydreaming. And, partly,
her mother is carrying on her own counter-dialogue about how the real artistic
talent in the family belonged to "Mama", whose miniature of Henry James is
still a big attraction at the Atheneum but who could not pursue painting seriously
because it "simply wasn't done" in those days. But, mostly, all three participants
in this discussion are distracted by the box of saltines, which passes from hand
to hand in a kind of epiphany of the essential blandness of WASP dining carried
to its most ludicrous extreme. Thus, the main text of Mags' story about the gallery
showing is constantly punctuated by a kind of distracting subtext dominated by
a quintessentially boring food product that characterises this family by becoming
the indifferent focal point of everyone's attention:
MAGS. I'm starving. I've got to get something to eat before I collapse! (She exits
towards the kitchen.) . . . (returns, eating saltines out of the box) . . .
GARDNER. (reaching for the saltines) Hey, Mags, could I have a couple of those?
 MAGS. (tosses him the box) Sure! . . . Symbolism and
GARDNER. Thanks. (He stars munching on a handful.) . . . (mouth full) Mmmmm, Meaning in
I'd forgotten just how delicious saltines are!. . . (offering the box of saltines to FANNY)
You really ought to try some of these, Fan, they're absolutely delicious! Works of Art
FANNY. (taking a few) Why, thank you . . . These are good!
GARDNER. Here, dig in '. . . take some more.
MAGS. I have some wonderful news . . . amazing news! I wanted to wait till I got 31
here to tell you. (They eat their saltines, passing the box back and forth as MAGS
speaks.) . . .
FANNY. (reaching for the box of saltines) More, more . . .
GARDNER. (swallowing his own mouthful) I told you they were good (pp. 19-22).
The Cocktail Hour
On the other hand, trivial acts of consumption sometimes serve to bring this
household together by co-ordinating its members' efforts towards a shared
consuming ritual. The best example concerns the nearly sacrosanct cocktail hour,
that bastion of WASP respectability, which this family observes with a sort of hushed
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reverence marked by nearly liturgical conventions that appear and reappear with
clear delineation and frequent repetition.
First, Fanny "taps at an imaginary watch on her wrist and drains an imaginary
glass" (p. 35) or "taps her wrist and mimes drinking" (p. 45) while inquiring,
"Isn't it getting to be . . . cocktail time?!" (p. 35) or "Isn't it about time for . . .
cocktails!" (p. 45). Next, Gardner "looks at his watch" (p. 35 and p. 45) and
confirms the accuracy of her insticts: "On the button, on the button" (p. 35)
or "Right you are, right you are" (p. 45). There then follows an interminable
discussion focused on what everyone would like to have, which generally turns
out to be "THE USUAL" (p. 35 and p. 45). Finally, Gardner retires to the bar
to mix the drinks, re-emerging once or twice to enquire again about what the
others are having, but ultimately returning with the correct cocktails in hand.
Apparently, this is the one task that he can still perform reliably — except, of
course, when he cannot find the ice, presumably because he does not remember
that it is kept in the refrigerator: "I couldn't find the ice . . . It just disappeared"
(p. 49). This latter event is the cause of great sadness for him, perhaps because
it provides the most indisputable evidence that his powers really have begun to
fail him. In this social framework, not being able to find the ice is a critical liability.
Meanwhile, at first, Mags declines the offer of a cocktail: "How about a little
. . . Dubonnet to wet your whistle? . . . MAGS, HOW ABOUT YOU? . . . A
LITTLE . . . DUBONNET . . .?" (Gardner, p. 35). Apparently, for her, "the
usual" is "No, nothing, thanks" (p. 35). In other words, she participates by playing
the role of abstaining, perhaps in another bid for parental approval (though one
dimly senses that her preferred form of intoxication or stimulation is probably
smoking grass or snorting coke). Ultimately, however, not even Mags can resist
the conforming and socialising force of the cocktail hour. Her abstinence becomes
one more battle ground for Fanny's light-hearted but persistent coaxing:
Do join us, Mags! Daddy bought some Dubonnet especially for you! . . . Oh, do join
us! . . . You sure you won't join us? (p. 35) . . . Come on, darling, join me . . . Oh
come on, kick up your heels for once! . . . Please? Pretty please . . .? To keep me
company?! (p. 48).
 European On what seems like the three hundredth enquiry as to whether she would like
Journal of a drink, Mags finally surrenders:
Marketing SURE WHY NOT. . .? LET 'ER RIP!. . . I'LL HAVE SOME DUBONNET! (p. 45);
22,7 Oh, all right, what the hell (p. 48).
By conforming to the cocktail ritual, Mags wins Fanny's temporary approval:
32
That's a good girl!. . . Well, drink up, drink up! (MAGS downs it in one gulp.) GOOD
GIRL! (p. 49).
Even while being cast in the role of a small child taking castor oil, Mags has joined
symbolically in her family's most hallowed sacramental rite, the laying on of martinis
and aperitifs. This is as close as this particular group gets to organised religion.
Indeed, God and other spiritual matters receive no mention in the play. Yet, profane
though it may be, the cocktail ceremony does serve the function of holding together
this family called Church.
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The Family Portrait: Silly

The thematic contrast between indifference and solidarity found in the minor
consumption symbolism (saltines versus cocktails) reaches its most profound
expression at the level of artistic durability in the main event that lends the play
its name — specifically, Mags' painting of her parents' portrait. This aspect of
"painting Churches" unfolds in two stages — the first silly, the second serious.
The first phase of the portrait session recaptures all the mutual indifference
embodied in the episode with the box of saltines. At first, Fanny protests that
she does not want to have her portrait painted. Then, her protests give way to
distractive clowning as she and Gardner strike weird poses and make funny faces
at each other and the audience like little children in front of a mirror:
They stare straight ahead, trying to look like suitable subjects, but they can't hold
still. They keep making faces; lifting an eyebrow, wriggling a nose, twitching a lip, nothing
grotesque, just flickering little changes; a half smile here, a self-importantfrownthere.
They steal glances at each other every so often . . . Without meaning to, they get
sillier and sillier. They start giggling, then laughing (pp. 28-29).
Finally, Fanny and Gardner's resisting antics reach nearly epic proportions as they
pose in humorous parodies of famous artistic scenes from the past — Grant Wood's
American Gothic (p. 36), Michaelangelo's Pieta (p. 37) and The Creation (p. 38),
with Gardner ironically playing the role of God ("OH MY DEAREST, YOU'RE
A GENIUS, AN ABSOLUTE GENIUS", p. 38).
These elaborate gestures have the effect of at once displaying the cultivation
and sophistication of Mags' parents while showing their ill-disguised inability to
take her work seriously:
MAGS . . . You just don't take me seriously! Poor old Mags and her ridiculous
portraits . . .
FANNY. Oh darling, your portraits aren't ridiculous! They may not be all that one hopes
for, but they're certainly not . . . (p. 36).
Fanny does not complete her sentence, but neither does she deny her refusal
to take Mags seriously. Thus, Fanny and Gardner share an inability to regard their
 daughter with respect, though for very different reasons — Fanny because she Symbolism and
has never respected her daughter's artistic achievements and Gardner because Meaning in
he is past taking anything seriously. Works of Art
The Family Portrait: Serious-
For Mags, however, the consequences of the family portrait matter enormously.
Like any artist — whether painter or musician or writer — Mags puts herself 33
in a vulnerable position: "It's quite a risk" (p. 48). She will soon reveal her
innermost feelings to public scrutiny: "you make your most intimate moves, throw
open your soul" (p. 48). Naturally, she fears that her efforts will receive rejection
or scorn. Historically, in the context of this particular family, she has ample reason
for these concerns.
Thus, the tension mounts as Mags' parents finally do appear for their formal
sitting, with Gardner wearing his best tuxedo and Fanny in her finest black velvet
gown (plus the inevitable hat). They sit splendidly in front of the magnificent red
table cloth that Mags has hung in the window, and Gardner recites verses of poetry
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with perfect recollection while, for a moment, all three collaborate in an intense
artistic effort.
This brief but heightened experience of shared consumption prepares the way
for the ultimate climax that occurs when, with great trepidation, Mags finally shows
her parents the finished product. Longing for their approval, she hesitatingly
deprecates her own artistic achievement using all the familiar excuses:
I did it almost completely from memory. The light was terrible . . . you weren't the
most co-operative models . . . It was awfully late when Ifinishedit. The light was
really impossible and my eyes were hurting like crazy . . . It was so late I could hardly
see anything and then I spilled a whole bottle of thinner into my palette (p. 79).
There follows a perfect satiric treatment of the poles of artistic criticism (or, for
that matter, virtually any review process). As always, Fanny receives the work
from her usual perspective of self-centred utilitarian preoccupations, caring only
how the painting makes her look and whether it faithfully represents the familiar
reality with which she surrounds herself. By contrast, Gardner retreats into his
capacity for finding nothing but good in any artistic creation, especially anything
created by his daughter, and loses himself in the details of her use of light and
colour with very little concern for whether she has captured or flattered his own
self-image. Thus, these ageing parents speak for the extreme viewpoints of critics,
reviewers, and other interpreters through time immemorial, vividly encapsulating
the contrast between extrinsic (utilitarian) and intrinsic (aesthetic) value in one's
appreciation of an artwork:
FANNY. I think it's perfectly dreadful!
GARDNER. Awfully clever, awfully clever! . . . It's really very good!
FANNY. (pointing) That doesn't look anything like me!. . . Since when do I have purple
skin and bright orange hair . . .?
GARDNER. (moving closer to it) Yes, yes, it's awfully clever . . . The whole thing
is quite remarkable!
FANNY . . . At least my dress is presentable. I've always loved that dress.
 European GARDNER. It sparkles somehow . . .
Journal of FANNY. (examining it at closer range) Yes, she got the dress very well, how it shows
Marketing off what's left of my figure . . . My smile is nice too . . . I love how the corners of
my mouth turn up . . .
22,7 GARDNER. It's very clever . . . Good lighting effects! . . . You're awfully good with
those highlights (pp. 80-81).
34
As usual, Fanny and Gardner talk past one another, with Fanny showing indifference
to the feelings of Mags. But, here, their words in response to this particular
consumption experience have the most serious possible consequences for their
daughter's sense of self-esteem. Gradually, Mags begins to understand that her
parents, in their own way, do appreciate her painting and do respond to it
imaginatively. And so, in the play's climactic moments, Mags sits on the floor
in the corner almost crazed with happiness, smiling and repeating to herself, over
and over,
They like it . . . They like it! . . . They like it. . . They like it . . . they like it! (pp.
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81-82).

Conclusion
The play ends with Fanny and Gardner literally enacting their own imaginative
transformation of Mags' painting. In it, they see colours and lights that suggest
to them a French cafe scene from some dimly remembered Impressionist painting:
You know what it is? The wispy brush strokes make us look like a couple in a French
Impressionist painting... a Manet or Renoir . . . There's something about the light
. . . You know those Renoir cafe scenes . . . ? . . . You know the one with the couple
dancing . . . ? . . . She's got on this wonderful flowered dress with ruffles at the neck
. . . and she's got the most rhapsodic expression on her face . . . And aren't Japanese
lanterns strung up . . . ? . . . and doesn't the woman have a hat on . . .? A big red hat
. . .? (pp. 81-83).
As Fanny and Gardner engage in this mutual revery, they join together to transform
their imaginative response to Mags' portrait into a visible symbol of their enduring
devotion to one another. They embrace and, while faint music is heard, begin
to dance.
Except for Mags' painting (destined to find its way to a New York art gallery),
the stage is empty. Everything that filled the Churches' living room and lives has
been packed up and moved away. Fanny and Gardner now have nothing left but
each other. For a brief moment, father and mother and daughter merge into a
turning image of what matters and lasts and remains:
She goes up to him and puts an arm on his shoulder . . . GARDNER . . . getting
into the spirit of it, takes FANNY in his arms and slowly begins to dance around the
room . . . They pick up speed, dipping and whirling around the room. Strains of a
far-away Chopin waltz are heard . . . The lights become dreamy and dappled as they
dance around the room. MAGS watches them, moved to tears and. . . THE CURTAIN
FALLS (pp. 82-83).
 Discussion Symbolism and
It appears, with Painting Churches as a paradigmatic case, that the use of Meaning in
consumption symbolism can do much to enrich our experience of the meaning Works of Art
to be found in a work of art. In this play, the characters do very little but consume
and talk and consume their talking and talk about their consuming. On the surface,
they are just an ordinary family of consumers who buy hats, wear overcoats, dye
their hair, and eat saltines. But, slightly below that surface, all these acts of 35
consumption carry and convey meanings that reveal the character of their
personalities and interpersonal relations. One need not dwell on the Freudian
distinction between manifest and latent content to appreciate that, even without
invoking the unconscious or other psycho-analytic mechanisms, theatrical
communication occurs at many levels so that consumption imagery can and (in
many cases) does play a role in the multi-faceted moulding of artistic meaning.
This use of insights from consumer behaviour departs widely from the norm
found in the marketing literature. No implications for managerial applications appear
to follow from our interpretation of Painting Churches. We have made little, if any,
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progress towards a grasp on the problems of designing hats, introducing innovations

in overcoats, distributing underpants, or segmenting the market for saltine crackers.
Nor can we safely extract prescriptions about ways to combat alcoholism by
attacking the cocktail hour or methods to broaden the audience for the arts by
encouraging creativity in children. Rather, we seem to have found a case where
marketing phenomena have few if any implications for managers. In this sense,
they lack relevance.
In another sense, however, they possess extraordinary relevance, a relevance
that runs in the direction opposite from our usual expectations. For we have seen
that, in Painting Churches, marketing-related consumption behaviour sits at the
core of the symbolic system that carries and conveys the play's central meanings.
One cannot interpret the play without understanding its symbolic consumption.
Hence, charged with significance, marketing phenomena can and often do contribute
to the development of meaning in works of art. Thus far, this contribution has
received little attention from marketing and consumer researchers. One hopes,
however, that this paper and the illustrative use of Painting Churches will encourage
more extended and systematic treatments of consumption symbolism as a vehicle
for artistic meaning. In that sense, we find ourselves paraphrasing the words of
John F. Kennedy in another context: "Ask not what Art can do for Marketing
and Consumer Research, but what they can do for Art".
Our analysis of Painting Churches provides one, but only one entree into this
potentially fertile area for enquiry. At a minimum, the reader should be convinced
that, at least for some works of art, consumption experiences provide the basis
on which interpretation must rest. In particular, Painting Churches reminds us
of the difference between what to keep and what to throw away. It raises the
problem of durability and ties this issue to the nature of artistic creativity. It shows
how the use of consumption symbolism can provide meaning in works of art and
can serve as a sign for what things in life endure and for what things that endure
really matter.
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