Modernism after Wagner

Modernism after Wagner

by Juliet Koss
ISBN-10:
0816651590
ISBN-13:
9780816651597
Pub. Date:
03/03/2010
Publisher:
University of Minnesota Press
ISBN-10:
0816651590
ISBN-13:
9780816651597
Pub. Date:
03/03/2010
Publisher:
University of Minnesota Press
Modernism after Wagner

Modernism after Wagner

by Juliet Koss

Paperback

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Overview

References to the Gesamtkunstwerk, 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.

In Modernism 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 the Gesamtkunstwerk in 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 the Gesamtkunstwerk under National Socialism. Attending to Wagner's absorption into Fascist aesthetics, Koss foregrounds the revolutionary origins of the Gesamtkunstwerk and its emancipatory potential.

Rigorously researched and highly accessible, Modernism after Wagner places the Gesamtkunstwerk at the heart of modern art and culture.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780816651597
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication date: 03/03/2010
Pages: 392
Product dimensions: 7.40(w) x 10.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to the Total Work of Art xi

Ubiquitous Gesamtkunstwerk

Reverent Misunderstandings

Nationalism and Internationalism

Medium Specificity and Interdisciplinarity

1 The Utopian Gesamtkunstwerk 1

Revolutionary Dresden

Origins and Sources

The Gesamtkunstwerk of the Future

The Audience of the Future

2 Building Bayreuth 25

Theoretical Architecture

Gottfried Semper and Munich

The Bayreuth Festival Theater

The Modern Auditorium

The Mystical Abyss

3 Empathy Abstracted 67

Aesthetic Empathy

Empathy and Relief

Psychological Empathy

Empathy and Abstraction

Self-Estrangement and the Fear of Space

4 The Nietzschean Festival 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

5 Retheatricalizing the Theater 139

Ausstellung München 1908

The Munich Artists' Theater

Abstraction on a Shallow Stage

Hildebrand and Relief Sculpture

Critical Responses

6 The Specter of Cinema 185

Projections in Munich

Advertising and Consumption

Hugo Münsterberg and the Photoplay

Reproducing Sound

Absorption and Distraction

7 Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls 207

Theater at the Bauhaus

Automata, Marionettes, and Dolls

Spectators and Estrangement

The Triadic Ballet

Costume Parties and the Gesamtkunstwerk

8 Invisible Wagner 245

Intoxication and Addiction

Sorcery, Conducting, and Hypnosis

Theodor Adorno, Phantasmagorical History, Failure

Dilettantism

Haunting Modernism

Acknowledgments 275

Notes 279

Bibliography 329

Index 357

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