Romans 8:28-30
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
The German writer, theologian and philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff first coined the word Gesamtkunstwerk. Like most German ideas it is a whole sentence crammed into one word. The two parts of the word are "Gesamt", meaning total or totality and "kunstwerk", meaning artwork. So it is the idea of a total work of art. The concept manifests itself in several artistic genres.
Concerning the idea of
Gesamtkunstwerk's application in music,
The Guardian writes, "Wagner couldn't spell it – he wrote "Gesammtkunstwerk" – but he knew what he meant by it, and the word could be said to sum up his entire aesthetic philosophy once he had decided to cast off what he came to see as the shackles of Italianate opera. It means "total work of art", and Wagner introduced the term in 1849 in a series of essays in which he decried the fragmentation of the arts and argued it had been downhill all the way since the Greeks." Richard Wagner saw Opera as an opportunity for the artist to be integrated in the whole of the creation process: music, lyrics, drama, aesthetic, design, etc. In 2010 the
LA Opera teamed up the German artist
Achim Freyer (as set and costume designer) to honor
Richard Wagner's idea of a total work of art in the production of his greatest series of Operas.
The Ring Cycle.
When it comes to the architect as an artist demanding total control
Frank Lloyd Wright is the
archetype of control freaks. He not only designed houses but he designed everything that was to be inside of the houses. The
Frederick C. Robie House is one of the greatest examples of this. It is not One of his aesthetically interesting exteriors but the fact that he designed the interior down to the windows and furniture makes it one of his greatest holistic pieces of architectural art.
The
Sistine Chapel itself is an example of
Gesamtkunstwerk even though its production predates the idea. The uber-artist
Michelangelo produced each scene of the ceiling mosaic and "The Last Judgment that appears on the wall behind the altar. And this is the point where
K. F. E. Trahndorff's aesthetic idea of
Gesamtkunstwerk stumbles into his theological interests.
I am not sure if he saw a connection between the two fields, but Michelangelo saw the connection between his total work of art and God's total work of art in human history. Before the viewer gets to culmination of "The Last Judgment" they are lead through the story of salvation history in the
Sistine Chapel Ceiling. You see the hand of the Divine at work in every episode in Scripture and come to the conclusion that God is the ultimate practitioner of
Gesamtkunstwerk.
Wikipedia Theology
You may have noticed that I use Wikipedia a lot in my references and hyperlinks. I have defended this practice before. As faulted as Wikipedia may be as an official academic source it also provides amazing finds that open up understanding to the masses. Like the above posted map that shows the different sections of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and what stories they refer to in Scripture. It illustrates in color coded detail St. Paul's argument of Romans 8:28-30: that the Creator God uses the aesthetic principal of
Gesamtkunstwerk. It is only when one considers the totality of the work that He is making that one can see it as a total work of Art. Or as St. Paul put it "all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Often we get frustrated when we suffer like Job, go through hard times like Ruth and Naomi, or get persecuted like one of the Prophets. And if we are honest about it, our situations do not always miraculously resolve themselves in three days like Jesus' resurrection. But that is only because we focus on the individual episodes of life and not the big picture of God's work in history...
salvation history. When we see the whole picture like Michelangelo then we can deal with the drama of Richard Wagner parts of our life and the interior details of the Frank Lloyd Wright parts of our life. The Creator has designed his masterpiece, the story of Mankind, to be a work of beauty that glorifies Him and displays mercy but it is only noticeable when you consider the total art work... the "all things."
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