The Total Work of Art in European Modernism
Title | The Total Work of Art in European Modernism PDF eBook |
Author | David Roberts |
Publisher | Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library |
Pages | 305 |
Release | 2011-11-15 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 0801460972 |
In this groundbreaking book David Roberts sets out to demonstrate the centrality of the total work of art to European modernism since the French Revolution. The total work of art is usually understood as the intention to reunite the arts into the one integrated whole, but it is also tied from the beginning to the desire to recover and renew the public function of art. The synthesis of the arts in the service of social and cultural regeneration was a particularly German dream, which made Wagner and Nietzsche the other center of aesthetic modernism alongside Baudelaire and Mallarmé. The history and theory of the total work of art pose a whole series of questions not only to aesthetic modernism and its utopias but also to the whole epoch from the French Revolution to the totalitarian revolutions of the twentieth century. The total work of art indicates the need to revisit key assumptions of modernism, such as the foregrounding of the autonomy and separation of the arts at the expense of the countertendencies to the reunion of the arts, and cuts across the neat equation of avant-gardism with progress and deconstructs the familiar left-right divide between revolution and reaction, the modern and the antimodern. Situated at the interface between art, religion, and politics, the total work of art invites us to rethink the relationship between art and religion and art and politics in European modernism. In a major departure from the existing literature David Roberts argues for twin lineages of the total work, a French revolutionary and a German aesthetic, which interrelate across the whole epoch of European modernism, culminating in the aesthetic and political radicalism of the avant-garde movements in response to the crisis of autonomous art and the accelerating political crisis of European societies from the 1890s forward.
The Total Work of Art in European Modernism
Title | The Total Work of Art in European Modernism PDF eBook |
Author | David Roberts |
Publisher | Cornell University Press |
Pages | 305 |
Release | 2011-12-15 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 0801461456 |
In this groundbreaking book David Roberts sets out to demonstrate the centrality of the total work of art to European modernism since the French Revolution. The total work of art is usually understood as the intention to reunite the arts into the one integrated whole, but it is also tied from the beginning to the desire to recover and renew the public function of art. The synthesis of the arts in the service of social and cultural regeneration was a particularly German dream, which made Wagner and Nietzsche the other center of aesthetic modernism alongside Baudelaire and Mallarmé. The history and theory of the total work of art pose a whole series of questions not only to aesthetic modernism and its utopias but also to the whole epoch from the French Revolution to the totalitarian revolutions of the twentieth century. The total work of art indicates the need to revisit key assumptions of modernism, such as the foregrounding of the autonomy and separation of the arts at the expense of the countertendencies to the reunion of the arts, and cuts across the neat equation of avant-gardism with progress and deconstructs the familiar left-right divide between revolution and reaction, the modern and the antimodern. Situated at the interface between art, religion, and politics, the total work of art invites us to rethink the relationship between art and religion and art and politics in European modernism. In a major departure from the existing literature David Roberts argues for twin lineages of the total work, a French revolutionary and a German aesthetic, which interrelate across the whole epoch of European modernism, culminating in the aesthetic and political radicalism of the avant-garde movements in response to the crisis of autonomous art and the accelerating political crisis of European societies from the 1890s forward.
The Total Work of Art
Title | The Total Work of Art PDF eBook |
Author | David Imhoof |
Publisher | Berghahn Books |
Pages | 300 |
Release | 2016-07-01 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 178533185X |
For two centuries, Gesamtkunstwerk—the ideal of the “total work of art”—has exerted a powerful influence over artistic discourse and practice, spurring new forms of collaboration and provoking debates over the political instrumentalization of art. Despite its popular conflation with the work of Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk’s lineage and legacies extend well beyond German Romanticism, as this wide-ranging collection demonstrates. In eleven compact chapters, scholars from a variety of disciplines trace the idea’s evolution in German-speaking Europe, from its foundations in the early nineteenth century to its manifold articulations and reimaginings in the twentieth century and beyond, providing an uncommonly broad perspective on a distinctly modern cultural form.
Modernism: A Very Short Introduction
Title | Modernism: A Very Short Introduction PDF eBook |
Author | Christopher Butler |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 137 |
Release | 2010-07-29 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 0192804413 |
A compact introduction to modernism--why it began, what it is, and how it hasshaped virtually all aspects of 20th and 21st century life
The Total Art of Stalinism
Title | The Total Art of Stalinism PDF eBook |
Author | Boris Groys |
Publisher | Verso Books |
Pages | 145 |
Release | 2014-05-27 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 1844678091 |
From the ruins of communism, Boris Groys emerges to provoke our interest in the aesthetic goals pursued with such catastrophic consequences by its founders. Interpreting totalitarian art and literature in the context of cultural history, this brilliant essay likens totalitarian aims to the modernists’ goal of producing world-transformative art. In this new edition, Groys revisits the debate that the book has stimulated since its first publication.
In Senghor's Shadow
Title | In Senghor's Shadow PDF eBook |
Author | Elizabeth Harney |
Publisher | Duke University Press |
Pages | 356 |
Release | 2004-11-23 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 9780822333951 |
DIVA study of art in post-independence Senegal./div
The Aesthetics of the Total Artwork
Title | The Aesthetics of the Total Artwork PDF eBook |
Author | Anke K. Finger |
Publisher | Johns Hopkins University Press |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2011-01-31 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 9780801895821 |
In The Aesthetics of the Total Artwork, artists, curators, and scholars from many countries and fields offer new ways of understanding the history and contemporary importance of the idea of the total artwork, or Gesamtkunstwerk. The term "Gesamtkunstwerk" was introduced in the romantic period. It describes the desire for and practice of combining various art forms into a whole, such as performances that combine text, visual arts, music, dance, and architecture. Richard Wagner was one of the early theorists of the concept, inspiring many modernist artists; yet, due to his ideological significance for the Third Reich, the concept has frequently been associated with totalitarianism since the Second World War. Nonetheless, artistic practice has continued to incorporate all-inclusive tendencies, even while avoiding the term “total artwork.” The contributors to this volume challenge us to think again about the total artwork, daring to suggest that it is alive and well, that it informs current art in ways that are deep, meaningful, contentious, and provocative. The essays come from authors steeped in literary culture, the world of art, philosophy, and music theory. Such diverse perspectives can only stimulate debate in the academy and beyond about the history of the Gesamtkunstwerk and open up paths that may be followed in its future.