Man and Environment

Nature and Civilization

Despite its individual dynamics, popular

culture is a culture of long time- spans. It appropriatesnature and explores its possibilities and limits. Un-written laws governed the methods for dealing withresources, and traditional societies developed theirown systems for using these resources in the bestpossible way.

The pre- industrial era and its continuinginfluence on agricultural regions offered only a limit-ed pool of materials and tools. In practice, tool andmaterial use was continually refined and adapted toprevailing circumstances. Even in times of increasingspecialization, natural forms and the properties of thesimplest materials, such as wood, grass or bark, gavethe objects in daily use their appearance.

One example is the practice of manufactur-ing pieces of equipment from a single piece of wood,and this has survived into our own century. Thisenabled a wide range of products to be manufacturedusing only a small number of tools: not only beehives,seating furniture, vessels, bowls, and containers ofarchaic appearance, but also figurative sculptures. Allare variants of a single basic technique, worked froma solid piece of wood using adzes and knives.

Beehive

Hollowed- out trunk showing Saint Johannes NepomukBohemia, around 1830