Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T23:33:01.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Structuralism, Symbolist poetics and abstract art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Boris Wiseman
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access

Summary

In the preceding chapter I have considered the implications of the connection made by Lévi-Strauss between art and so-called ‘wild’ thinking for a theory of the production of the aesthetic sign and what this connection tells us about some of art's modes of signification. The lesson of structuralism, here, is that in addition to any denotative or referential function, the aesthetic sign mediates between mind and world. The aesthetic sign is not – or is not only – that which figures or more generally ‘points’ to the world; it is constitutive of a particular experience of it. The world is not apprehended in a work of art, but through it. In this chapter, I would like to look more closely at the implications of Lévi-Strauss's understanding of the functioning of concrete logic for a theory of the ‘consumption’ of the aesthetic sign. To do this, I will examine an aspect of the genealogy of structuralism, whose importance for a general understanding of Lévi-Strauss's works has already been demonstrated by James Boon in From Symbolism to Structuralism: Lévi-Strauss in a Literary Tradition. As Boon realised very well, structuralism is deeply connected to the current of ideas in French culture that led from Baudelaire to the Symbolist and post-Symbolist poets. He shows that one of the dominant paradigms of twentieth-century anthropological theory originated, in part at least, in a literary movement.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×