Studies On Levi-strauss’s Anthropology Of Art Thoughts

As a French anthropologist and philosopher of international reputation, ClaudeLevi-Strauss (1908-2009) obtained inspiration from structuralism linguistics ofSaussure and Jakobson, and made great achievements through applying structuralapproach to anthropological research process. He devoted himself to academicresearch and published more than ten books in his life, for example, The ElementaryStructures of Kinship, A World on the Wane, Structural Anthropology, Totemism, TheSavage Mind, Mythologiques I-IV etc, which affected more than10disciplines such asphilosophy, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, history, psychology, literature, art,folklore etc. Kinship, totemism, primitive thinking and mythology constitute the mainareas of Levi-Strauss’s anthropological research. The current domestic researchesmainly focus on the fields of anthropology and philosophy, and put relatively lessattention on the artistic aspects of Levi-Strauss’s works. At present, to studyLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts is a new worldwide trend, which not onlyplays an important role in ours better understanding of those anthropological thoughtsof Levi-Strauss, but also provides references and inspiration to the development ofliterary theories as well as other artistic theories and the construction of theanthropology of art.Levi-Strauss often talks about art in the process of anthropological researchbecause of his unique temperament of an artist and his preference to art. He has notonly studied primeval plastic art, but also analyzed poem and music from theperspective of structuralism, and he even directly regarded myth as a work of art.Thus, the primeval plastic art, mythology, literature and music are four faces ofLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts. In addition, as a sincere advocate ofstructuralism, Levi-Strauss always had a conscious awareness of structuralismmethodology in the course of his artistic anthropology research. Therefore,Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts can be summarized as one method and four faces, namely structuralism approach, primeval plastic art, mythology, literatureand music. Nowadays, scholars attach little attention to the study of these faces ofLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts, except the mythology face. This thesisbased on existing research achievement, attempts to size Levi-Strauss’s anthropologyof art thoughts comprehensively and systematically, through the integrated using ofdialectical thinking of logic and historical, genesis and comparative methods. Thepaper is mainly divided into nine sections:The first section is an epitome including a brief introduction of anthropology andartistic anthropology, and a preliminary estimate on the significance of the study ofLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts. On this basis, the paper introduces thecurrent research situation of Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thought at home andabroad. The research methods and logical framework are explained finally.Chapter Ⅰ mainly discusses Levi-Strauss’s life, works and the backgroundinformation of his anthropology of art thoughts, which I think is the premise of ourfurther research. According to Levi-Strauss’s works, we think the life of Levi-Strausscan be divided into five periods: knowledge accumulation period, vagrancy period,academic trying period, heyday period and review period. The origin ofLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts is related to the colonial liberation trendafter World War II in the field of politics, modern scientific and technologicalrevolution and scientific thought in the field of science and technology and the rise oflinguistic turn in the field of culture. Modern linguistic theory, psychoanalytic theory,geology, Marxist doctrine and the French sociological theories are theoretical originof Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts. Levi-Strauss’s unique temperament ofan artist and his artistic preference led directly to the generation of his anthropologyof art thoughts.Chapter Ⅱ mainly discusses the methodological characteristics of Levi-Strauss’santhropology of art thoughts. This chapter mainly focuses on the structural aspect,analyzing the process of its generation and its specific meaning in Levi-Strauss’santhropology of art thoughts. This thesis agrees with Jean Piaget’s opinion thatintegrity, conversion and self-regulation are three features of structuralism. Not only that, the paper also summarizes that structuralism experienced a transition fromlinguistics to anthropology and finally turned to literary theory. Thus, structuralismcan be discriminated into two meanings: one is a way of thinking or the structure ofresearch method, the other is structuralism as a philosophical trend. Levi-Strauss’sstructuralism thoughts have systemic, relational, synchronic, conversion, constantinvariance and unconscious six major traits which is to say they are inherent inhumanity itself and origin from the unconscious operation of human mind.Chapter Ⅲ mainly discusses the primeval plastic art face of Levi-Strauss’santhropology of art thoughts, and highlights Levi-Strauss’s research on masks andsplit representation in the primeval plastic art. Levi-Strauss’s research on primevalplastic art can be divided into two levels: expounding art within art and expoundingart beyond art. The former analyzes styling features of primeval plastic art through theusing of structuralism approach; the latter explores the profound meanings of theprimeval plastic art from cultural perspective. This two-level analysis method isembodied in Levi-Strauss’s research on masks and split representation of the primevalplastic art.Chapter Ⅳ mainly discusses the myth face of Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of artthoughts, focusing on Levi-Strauss’s researches on totem, wild thinking and myth.Levi-Strauss not only regarded totem as a philological fact, but also looked the totemsystem as a reflection of human thinking. He believed that wild thinking was one kindof parallel thinking with scientific thinking, which in essence, was a kind of untamedthinking following the emotional logic. Levi-Strauss’s myth research can be dividedinto two stages: The first stage is represented by his analysis on the Oedipus mythwhich mainly based on the myth itself through using structural approach. His analysisof The Story of Asdiwal was the representative of the latter stage. He not onlyemphasized structural analysis of myth text, but also sought the cultural backgroundof the myth in this period. This method was the true representative of Levi-Strauss’smyth research.Chapter Ⅴ discusses the literary face of Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of artthoughts, focusing on Levi-Strauss’s studies on poetry, fiction, prose and drama. The author thinks that the true representative of Levi-Strauss’s poetic thoughts is hisanalysis on colchicines rather than he and Jacobson teamed analysis on cat. Theanalysis of cat was just an experiment of poetic studies by first applying structuralismapproach, which inevitably made some mistakes. The analysis of colchicines in whichLevi-Strauss’s not only used structuralism approach for analyzing the poem itself butalso further validated his analysis from anthropological aspect reflected his truestandpoint of an artistic anthropologist in poetic studies. We can also noticeLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts at his studies on fiction, prose and drama.If Levi-Strauss’s poetic studies represent the depth of his anthropology of art thoughts,then his studies on fiction, prose and drama are manifestation of the breadth of hisanthropology of art thoughts.Chapter Ⅵ discusses the musical face of Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of artthoughts. Levi-Strauss’s studies on music were different from those of professionalmusic critics, and he mainly viewed music from the perspective of structuralismmythology. In his view, there are structural similarities and continuities betweenmusic and myth, and both of them belonged to language. Language is composed ofthe phonemes, words and sentences. Music highlights the sound part of language,which is equivalent to the level of phonemes and statements, but there is no equivalentto the word level. Myth highlights the part of the meaning of language, which isequivalent to the level of words and phrases, but there is no equivalent to the level ofthe phoneme. Levi-Strauss not only emphasized structural characteristics of music,but also laid stress on the function of music as a kind of mediation between nature andculture.Chapter Ⅶ tries to make a more comprehensive and rational evaluation toLevi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts in academic history with his achievementand shortcomings included. The role of Levi-Strauss’s studies on art likes a bridgewhich is the intermediate link from modern period to postmodern period in westernanthropology. The values of Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts are mainlyreflected in four aspects: cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary research method;awareness of the methodology; integrity, relationships and academic vision; combination of theory and practice strategy. The defects of Levi-Strauss’santhropology of art thoughts also reflected in four aspects: the lack of aesthetic andartistic dimensions, the structural analysis is sometimes full of arbitrary and priority,the fieldwork was not enough and his writing style was too obscure.The conclusion part tries to propose a new paradigm of anthropology of art studyon the basis of studies on Levi-Strauss’s anthropology of art thoughts, and this is ourmain point. The paper believes that the anthropology of art is an interdisciplinarybetween aesthetics/art and anthropology, and it has two properties of the aesthetic andcultural. The anthropology of art should move towards to a new research paradigmwhich as aesthetic culture critics in the new cultural context. This research paradigmapplies an intertextual way of thinking which evaluates the arts between aesthetic andculture. On the research methods, the new research paradigm emphasizes the culturalpoetics based on field work. And participates in the reality and life is its culturalfunctions.