Lévi-Strauss, Claude

Two autograph letters, in French, and 3 typescript letters, in English, signed ("Claude Levi-Strauss"); 8 pages (10 3/8 x 8 1/4 in.; 270 x 210 mm; 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in.; 297 x 210 mm; 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 in.; 208 x 134 mm); "College de France" heading, March and April 1972, August 1973 and August 1974; one envelope; in good condition, formerly folded; rust from staples on the upper left side. With: two photocopies of Suzi Gablik letters to Claude Levi-Strauss.

Suzi Gablik

in good condition, formerly folded; rust from staples on the upper left side.
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Claude Levi-Strauss thoughts about evolution of Art.

As Suzi Gablik is working on one of her main books, Art in Progress, using Jean Piaget's theory on the development of the intelligence in the indivudual, she askes Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the most (if not the most) important anthropologists, his advice and thoughts about her work described as follows: "I try to elaborate the cognitive structure of art. Basically this has led me to a developmental theory based on Piaget. I'm trying to show that the history of (Western) art has followed the same pattern of development that Piaget proposes for the development of the intelligence in the indivudual."

Lévi-Srauss' answer is certainly categorical. Though he agrees with Piaget's theory and refers to him in L'Homme Nu, he has serious doubts about the artistic point of view: "I must confess that I have the strongest misgivings against any suggestion that a relatively short span of man's philogenesis (...) could follow the same lines as individual epigenesis. One should not forget that classical perspective (...) is a mere convention, no less arbitary than any other convention." Where Gablik's theory considers the evolution of art as linear progression, Levi-Strauss opposes the argument of choice: "I would consider that (...) change is not progressive but rather the function of combinations and permutations or (...) of choices made among several possibilities. (...) The strength of Piaget's thesis comes from the fact that the same evolution (...) occurs over and over again in all indivuduals past, present or future. While the invention of classical perspective or that of cubist representation are unique events which took place only once and at a given place. These events (...) cannot be interpreted as the result of evolutionary law."

Mrs. Gablik continues then to compare her thesis about Art History with Piaget's theories on intellectual development and historical development. Once again, Lévi-Strauss sets out his arguments against Piaget's historical development (and, by the way, Mrs. Gablik's artistic theory): "I cannot accept extending (Piaget's theories on individual development) as he does it [for] historical developments which (...) occupy such a minute spans in the life of the human species. Could anybody claim that Aurigacian or Magdalenian painting marks an absolute beginning? Earlier forms did obviously exist, of which we know nothing (...) Therefore prehistoric paintings as we know them may be the final term of an evolution as well as the initial term of another one, amd in this case which one? since there is a tremendous gap between them and later stages." He considers Piaget/Gablik's theories as accurate but only for the evolution of painting in Western Europe from the XIIth to the XVth century. "But what of Chinese painting (...)? And even in Europe, my feeling is that the true evolution of painting (should be there one) was completed with Van der Weyden. Since that time it has only spent, so to speak, the revenues of its capital and this, up to the XIXth century.Then Impressionnism has started eating up that capital as far as colour is concerned (how right was Baudelaire when writing to Manet that he was "le premier dans la decrepitude de son art"). (...) Cubism undertook the same task in the field of form, and that other slice was equally short lived."

Mrs. Gablik still pursued her theory, adapted from Piaget's works, and published in 1977. She sends Levi-Strauss the proofs of her book who answers her in French this time, following the debate: "Sans être toujours d'accord, je l'ai lu avec plaisir et intérêt. Ce que vous dites ne trahit pas ma pensée. (...) J'admets pleinement (...) que les structures de l'intelligence se développent chez chaque individu de la naissance à l'âge adulte et (...) j'adhère, pleinement aussi, à son optique "dynamiste". En revanche, je persiste à croire que, d'une période à l'autre de l'histoire de l'humanité ou d'une société à l'autre, ce ne sont pas les structures de l'esprits qui diffèrent, mais les problèmes que les hommes se posent. Et (...) chaque nouveau problème posé en implique un autre résolu, au niveau des problèmes, la perspective dynamique retrouve sa validité. Le niveau "statique" existe donc (...) inséré (...) entre deux niveaux dynamiques: l'individuel et le génétique en dessous, le collectif et l'historique au dessus."

He typed the letters with his "worn out typewriter (...) the same which (he) had with (him) over thirty years ago during (his) Brazilian expeditions."

A fantastic lecture in evolution by one of the most brilliant minds of the century.