The total work of art in European modernism

Abstract

The “total work of art,” from the German Gesamtkunstwerk, is associated with Wagner’s desire for artworks to unify the various modes of artistic expression and form an integral part of the cultural and political life of a community. This conception of art was inspired by Greek drama, which brought together dance, music and poetry, and which seemed to later romantic and post-romantic artists and thinkers to have emerged organically in a manner that would suggest there was no strict demarcation between life and art. This much is commonly known, but there is a surprising dearth of scholarship devoted to exploring the idea of the total work of art more deeply.