The Structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss and the Visual Arts

Leonardo, Vol. 10, pp. 303-306. Pergamon Press 1977. Printed in Great Britain THE STRUCTURALISM OF CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS AND THE VISUAL ARTS Art Brenner* The work in social anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss, although controversial, has led to the application of structuralist theory and especially its methods to a wide variety of social phenomena, including the visual arts. I began this article as a review of his book From Honey to Ashes[l]; however, it is in his previous book in this series, The Raw and the Cooked [1], that Levi-Strauss advances his views on art more explicitly. I should like to examine here these ideas as well as how Structuralism has affected the visual arts. To better place these matters in perspective, it may be helpful to sketch first a few of the salient points in his work. 1. Levi-Strauss has consistently directed his efforts 'to the search for the constraining structure of the mind' [2], that is, 'the universal laws which regulate the unconscious activities of the mind' (3). As regards the epistemologyof Structuralism, he states: 'The question may be raised whether different aspects of social life (including even art and religion) cannot only be studied by methods of linguistics but also whether they do not constitute phenomena whose inmost nature is the same as that of language' [3, p. 62]. His answer is a strong affirmative. Language is a system of relations, and this notion of relation is at the heart of structuralist analysis. The plurality of texts in a language is a result of the combination of a very small number of linguistic elements. Octavio paz [4] states that, similarly, the plurality of myths in all times and places is based on the repetition of a limited number ofelemental mythic ideas. This parallel analysis underlies Levi-Strauss's fourvolume Mythologiques, where he elegantly applies his analysis to hundreds of South American Indian myths (plus some from North America, when he deems them relevant). The myths themselves are fascinating, the development of the analysis no less so. The 'myths are arranged in a system of ideas, a 'language' to be deciphered. The unanticipated conclusion is that the meaning of one myth is another myth- which, in a way, is inevitable, since the myths deal with the contradictions of the human situation stemming from the oppositional relationship of nature and culture. In this dialectic, the myths are mediating (if ambiguous) terms functioning to supply the illusion of the reconciliation of opposites. But it is not the elemental ideas of these myths that interest Levi-Strauss; rather it is their relationships that determine a symbolic language, The logical manipulation of the symbols in a 'sort of algebra' leads to the·Sculptor (U.S.A.) living at 17 rue d'Aboukir, 75002 Paris, France. (Received 31 Mar. 1976) 303 proposition ofa structural model of a myth or a group of myths that, when compared or integrated with other models, reveals the 'deep structure' of the myths. (In linguistics, the surface structure ofa sentence is associated with the physical signal; the deep structure is related to meaning and to the formal mental operations generating a sentence'[5].) One aspect of Levi-Strauss's theory subjected to criticism is that the abstract level on which the 'algebra' operates does not permit 'scientific' verification, because the transformation of the myths resulting from the manipulation of the symbols is not reversible, and also the manipulation often appears arbitrary. However, since Levi-Strauss holds that 'symbols are more real than that which they symbolize' [6], he is not concerned with the translation of extrinsic data into symbols but rather in 'reducing' phenomena to their underlying symbolic system. Consequently, as Inno Rossi points out [7], transformation ofcultural phenomena, viewed as systems ofsigns and symbols, into the system ofanother language is a method of translating one semiotic system into another. The structural models derived by this method often permit the prediction of certain myths and, discovering their existence, their integration into the structural relationship of a group. Disputed, too, are his interpretations of the meanings of myths, which are usually at variance with those supplied by members of a tribe. But most psychologists (especially...