Modernism After Wagner

References to theGesamtkunstwerk, a "total work of art," abound in discussions of modern art and culture, often describing a seamless melding of a variety of art forms that overwhelm the emotions, impede critical thought, and mold a group of individuals into a powerless mass. Famously set forth by the composer Richard Wagner in 1849, the term has been applied to such disparate settings as the cinema palaces of Berlin in the 1920s and Andy Warhol's Factory scene in New York in the 1960s.InModernism after Wagner, Juliet Koss explores the history and legacy of Wagner's concept, laying out its genealogy and the political, aesthetic, and cultural context from which it emerged, and tracing its development and reception through the 1930s. Beginning with Wagner's initial articulation of theGesamtkunstwerkin the wake of the 1848-49 revolution, Koss addresses a series of linked episodes in German aesthetic theory and artistic practice that include the composer's efforts to build a theater to house his music dramas, culminating in the construction of the festival theater at Bayreuth in 1876; German aesthetic theory and criticism in the visual arts, theater, film, and radio from the 1870s to the 1920s; the founding of the Darmstadt Artists' Colony in 1901 and that of the Munich Artists' Theater in 1908; performances and parties at the Bauhaus in the 1920s and 1930s; and the legacy of theGesamtkunstwerkunder National Socialism. Attending to Wagner's absorption into Fascist aesthetics, Koss foregrounds the revolutionary origins of theGesamtkunstwerkand its emancipatory potential.Rigorously researched and highly accessible,Modernism after Wagnerplaces theGesamtkunstwerkat the heart of modern art and culture.

Juliet Koss is associate professor and chair of art history at Scripps College and coordinator of the Joint Art History Program of the Claremont Colleges.

An Introduction to the Total Work of Art	p. xi
Ubiquitous Gesamtkunstwerk
Reverent Misunderstandings
Nationalism and Internationalism
Medium Specificity and Interdisciplinarity
The Utopian Gesamtkunstwerk	p. 1
Revolutionary Dresden
Origins and Sources
The Gesamtkunstwerk of the Future
The Audience of the Future
Building Bayreuth	p. 25
Theoretical Architecture
Gottfried Semper and Munich
The Bayreuth Festival Theater
The Modern Auditorium
The Mystical Abyss
Empathy Abstracted	p. 67
Aesthetic Empathy
Empathy and Relief
Psychological Empathy
Empathy and Abstraction
Self-Estrangement and the Fear of Space
The Nietzschean Festival	p. 95
Georg Fuchs and the Cult of Nietzsche
The Darmstadt Artists' Colony
Peter Behrens, Theater Reformer
The Stage of the Future
The Prinzregententheater in Munich
Retheatricalizing the Theater	p. 139
Ausstellung München 1908
The Munich Artists' Theater
Abstraction on a Shallow Stage
Hildebrand and Relief Sculpture
Critical Responses
The Specter of Cinema	p. 185
Projections in Munich
Advertising and Consumption
Hugo Münsterberg and the Photoplay
Reproducing Sound
Absorption and Distraction
Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls	p. 207
Theater at the Bauhaus
Automata, Marionettes, and Dolls
Spectators and Estrangement
The Triadic Ballet
Costume Parties and the Gesamtkunstwerk
Invisible Wagner	p. 245
Intoxication and Addiction
Sorcery, Conducting, and Hypnosis
Theodor Adorno, Phantasmagorical History, Failure
Dilettantism
Haunting Modernism
Acknowledgments	p. 275
Notes	p. 279
Bibliography	p. 329
Index	p. 357
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