Gesamtkunstwerk

American  

[guh-zahmt-koonst-verk] / gəˈzɑmtˈkʊnst vɛrk /

noun

German.

1. total art work; an artistic creation, as the music dramas of Richard Wagner, that synthesizes the elements of music, drama, spectacle, dance, etc.

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Etymology

Origin of Gesamtkunstwerk

First recorded in 1935–40; from German: literally, “total art work”

Example Sentences

Music and dance were interwoven in a festival production that approached Wagner’s idea of the integrated artwork, or Gesamtkunstwerk.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 2, 2022

It is a Gesamtkunstwerk comprising visual art, literature, philosophy, speculation, koans and sociopolitical commentary.

From Washington Post • Dec. 22, 2021

A performance artist who has collaborated with the Royal Opera House choir, she imagined Bank Job as Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, or a total work of art.

From The Guardian • Sep. 15, 2020

Inevitably, one of his subsequent shows—he created about two hundred in his lifetime, mostly as a freelance curator—focussed on the Wagnerian ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the supposedly total art work.

From The New Yorker • Jul. 15, 2019

With Warren Platner’s luxe furnishings and Sheila Hicks’s abstract tapestries, the project was a Mad Men-era version of a Gesamtkunstwerk, a complete work of art.

From New York Times • Nov. 19, 2018