TOTAL WORK OF ART, THE

The Total Work of Art is a nineteenth-century form that strove to combine several artistic forms at one time; as an ideal, the Total work of art has had incalculable influence on twentieth-century performance. Even a very partial list of those inspired by the idea of the total work of art would make up a catalogue of modern thinkers - Baudlaire, Wagner, Strauss, Schoenberg, Gropius, Le Corbusier, Eisenstein, Diaghilev, Appia, Meyerhold, and, most notoriously, Hitler. The form's list of detractors would include Benjamin, Brecht, Adorno, and Boal. With its impact on architecture, theatre, music, literature, and film, the Total Work of Art has been one of the central aesthetic categories of the modern world. The Total Work of Art is the forerunner of contemporary multimedia performance, as well as of such simulacra as Disneyland.
This will be the first general introduction to the art form. The Total Work of Art will provide a broad survey that incorporates many canonical artists into a single narrative. With particular attention to the influence of the Total Work of Art on modern theatre and performance, this brief introduction will also be of interest to students in such fields as film studies, music history, history of art, cultural studies, and modern European literatures.