Gesamtkunstwerk

Graduate / Professional

This seminar explores the long history of the “total artwork,” or Gesamtkunstwerk . Brought to prominence by composer Richard Wagner in the middle of the nineteenth century, the term is widely associated with his signature form, the music drama, which he understood as a synthesis of music, poetry, and theater. But the roots of this concept lie decades earlier, in the aesthetic theory of the Romantic period; and its offshoots reach far beyond Wagner’s own day, into the choreographed interiors of the fin de siècle , and undergird pivotal twentieth-century attempts to unite art and life. Expanding on Wagner’s vision of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a musical and literary phenomenon, this seminar proposes it as central to the formation and theorization of modern art and design from the nineteenth century to today. This course explores the Gesamtkunstwerk in relation to histories of art and design. We examine the precursors of the Gesamtkunstwerk ; its manifestations in Wagner’s operas and stagecraft; its influence on the aesthetic movement, art nouveau, twentieth-century European modernisms, and its relevance for art and design strategies of the present day. The seminar is taught collaboratively between Yale University and the Bard Graduate Center, where the instructor will be Professor Freyja Hartzell. It includes opportunities for students from both institutions to meet and exchange ideas. There are two field trips to New York City, funded by the History of Art Department. W 1:30pm-3:25pm