Postulating the impossible? The ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk in interwar avant-garde periodicals and their manifestos

Abstract

The nineteenth-century principle of Gesamtkunstwerk was inseparably linked to the interwar avant-garde, as indicated in a plethora of manifestos and programmatic writings published in periodicals such as De Stijl, 7 Arts and Blok. The widely postulated interrelation of the arts in the service of social and cultural regeneration, however, did not always prove easy to implement. The social renewal of the Total Work of Art prophesied by avant-garde writers, painters and architects could hardly be achieved. This contribution seeks to answer the question whether the very synthesis of arts too was just an unachievable dream. Based on selected programmatic writings from avant-garde periodicals of Polish, Dutch and Belgian provenance I will analyse the recurring similarities and divergences that characterised various approaches to achieving the Total Work of Art voiced by particular artists. Subsequently I will scrutinise the chronicles of the actual cooperation between artists and architects in order to shed light on the actual application of the Gesamtkunstwerk ideal and the (im)possibility of its implementation.

Keywords:

• Gesamtkunstwerk
• Total Work of Art
• avant-garde
• Poland
• Low Countries

1. Introduction

The notion of Gesamtkunstwerk (also referred to as Total Work of Art or gemeenschapskunst), coined in the nineteenth century by Karl Trahndorff and popularised by Richard Wagner, has been the subject of countless analyses and interpretations. The will to create a Total Work of Art also became popular among avant-garde artists who in the course of the 1920s and 1930s applied and redefined this concept in their theoretical writings (Vandevoorde, 2013, p. 224). The need for cooperation between various professions was recurrently voiced throughout this period, as can be exemplified by Wassily Kandinsky’s ambition to create “monumental art or art as a whole” based on “collaborative research by painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, poets, dramatists, theatre and ballet directors, circus (clowns), [and] variety (comedians)” (Kandinsky 1920 quoted in Roberts, 2011, p. 148).

The synthesis of various arts was perceived as the correct way of developing modern literature, art and architecture, with the latter gaining a prominent status as a domain linking other forms of art. Since the beginning of the twentieth century the term Gesamtkunstwerk began to encompass the idea of architecture as the base to which other arts were linked, which was propagated for instance by the Bauhaus (cf. Świtek, 2013, pp. 173–198). Bruno Taut’s plea illustrates it succinctly:

“Bauen wir zusammen an einem großartigen Bauwerk! An einem Bauwerk, das nicht allein Architektur ist, in dem alles, Malerei, Plastik, alles zusammen eine große Architektur bildet, und in dem die Architektur wieder in den andern Künsten aufgeht.“ (Taut, 1914, p. 175)

[Let us build together a magnificent building! A building which will not be architecture alone, but in which everything – painting, sculpture, everything together – will create a great architecture and in which architecture will once again merge with the other arts. (transl.: Franciscono, 1971, p. 91)].

The ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk was simultaneously rooted in the ideal of an inter- or multimedial union of different arts into one integrated work of art, and in the ambition to renew the public function of art that would enable societal transformation. It remained, however, explicitly aesthetic (Fornoff, 2004, pp. 20–21). Thus, in this article I aim to concentrate on the first of the two pillars of Gesamtkunstwerk, deriving from Finger’s and Follet’s (2011, p. 3) understanding of Gesamtkunstwerk above all “as an aesthetic ambition to borderlessness”. As pointed out by Roberts (2011, p. 148), the reunion of art and life (the social renewal) was in fact an impossible dream, but what about the postulate of unification of arts (the aesthetical renewal)? Was the very notion of synthesis of all arts too just a dream?

Much has been written on the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk and its avant-garde application from a theoretical point of view, delineating two main readings of it: the Bauhausian vision of architectural unification of various arts and technology, and a more bohemian life-praxis that transformed life itself into a work of art (cf. Michelson, 1991; Lista, 2006; Finger & Follet, 2011; Roberts, 2011; Świtek, 2013, Herman, 2017; Michaud, 2019; Singsen, 2020; Munch, 2021; Imhoof et al., 2021). I, however, intend to shed light on the realm of practical implementation of the concept of art unification, which has so far not been fully explored (see for instance Lægring, 2020). This will be exemplified by a look at manifestos and programmatic writings published in avant-garde periodicals of Polish, Dutch and Belgian provenance, such as: De Stijl (Leiden and The Hague, 1917–1928 and 1932), Het Overzicht (Antwerp, 1921–1925), De Driehoek (Antwerp, 1925–1926), 7 Arts (Brussels, 1922–1928), Art Concret (Paris, 1930), Cercle et Carré (Paris, 1930), Abstraction-Création (Paris, 1932–1936), Zwrotnica (Krakow, 1922–1923 and 1926–1927), Blok (Warsaw, 1924–1926), Praesens (Warsaw, 1926 and 1930), Europa (Warsaw, 1929–1930) and Linia (Krakow, 1931–1933). In order to shed light on how the postulate of Gesamtkunstwerk was implemented by representatives of the abovementioned periodicals, I will describe selected examples of intermedial cooperation of artists from various fields (architects, painters, sculptors, writers) who attempted to collaborate and to create their Total Works of Art.

Avant-garde writers, artists and architects expressed their postulates of modernisation and renewal of art and society in a plethora of programmatic writings. One of the most characteristic forms of expression of avant-garde artists were manifestos – “strictly speaking (…) texts published in a brochure, in a journal or a review, in the name of a political, philosophical, literary or artistic movement” (Abastado, 1980 as quoted in Yanoshevsky, 2009b). Manifestos have been studied and analysed by various literary scholars and art historians since the 1980s, which has given them the status of a fully-fledged literary genre (for an in-depth analysis of the historiography of manifestos see Yanoshevsky, 2009a, 2009b). Manifestos appeared in a variety of shapes and forms, and they make up part of a larger family of polemical genres, such as proclamations, declarations, political decrees, pamphlets, and brochures etc., from which they are often difficult to define or distinguish (van den Berg, 1998).

Interwar avant-garde manifestos and other programmatic statements were written in various languages in all parts of Europe (and beyond), and they circulated between various nodes of the avant-garde network, hence they often reveal substantial resemblances and similarities (cf. Turowski, 1986, p. 27). This article explores selected theoretical publications of Polish, Dutch and Belgian provenance, a connection which, although not widely acknowledged, was in fact quite intense and long-lasting (cf. Wenderski, 2019 for a detailed analysis of mutual mobility between interwar avant-gardes from Poland and the Low Countries). The selection of texts analysed in this chapter includes not only statements explicitly designated as manifestos by their authors, but also other programmatic writings which share the key features of manifestos, i.e. a revolutionary and polemical tone, calls for aesthetic, social and political transformations, rejection of tradition and current principles, dogmatic discourse and its typical vocabulary (words such as to plead, oppose, protest, announce, denounce, declare, contrast, clarify, contest, reject etc.) – as outlined by Yanoshevsky (2009b).

2. Postulating Gesamtkunstwerk

The idea of a collective monumental art resulting from the interrelation of visual arts and architecture, was particularly important to Theo van Doesburg, as outlined by Blotkamp (1990, pp. 18–20, 1994, pp. 128–129). Already in his early writings T. van Doesburg (1916, 1918, 1920) envisaged a collective monumental style based on unity and harmony between various means of expression: architecture, sculpture, painting, music and literature. De Stijl too repeatedly referred to the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, for instance by publishing Gräff’s (1922, p. 74) manifesto where he postulated: “Wir schaffen das Gesamtkunstwerk. Die Zusammenarbeit von Architektur und Plastik und Malerei (Gemeinsam) mit Industrie und Technik, Leben.” [We create a Total Work of Art. A cooperation of architecture, art and painting (together) with industry and technology, life. Original spelling is kept in all quotations from primary sources. Unless indicated otherwise, they have been translated by the author—M.W.].

The unification of the arts and integrating them with all other aspects of life was also propagated by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy whose works and writings were to be seen on the pages of De Stijl in the early-1920s, as both him and Van Doesburg knew each other personally and shared mutual esteem for each other’s work (cf. White, 2006, p. 81). Worth noting, however, is Moholy-Nagy’s own understanding of the postulate of art synthesis, which he put forward in his 1925 book Malerei, Photographie, Film. In fact, Moholy-Nagy rejected the notion of Gesamtkunstwerk in favour of “a synthesis of all the vital impulses spontaneously forming itself into the all-embracing Gesamtwerk (life) which abolishes all isolation, in which all individual accomplishments proceed from a biological necessity and culminate in a universal necessity” (Moholy-Nagy, 1969, pp. 16–17). By removing Kunst [Art] from Gesamtkunstwerk, Moholy-Nagy postulated yet another level of unification—a synthesis of art and life, of personal fulfilment and common progress (Bailey, 2017; Botar, 2010).

Aiming at putting the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk into practice, Van Doesburg undertook numerous collaborative projects trying his best to cooperate with architects in order to create a harmonious synthesised art. These attempts, however, came across numerous obstacles and caused tensions among De Stijl. Despite the fact that from the very beginning the group united artists and architects (e.g. Gerrit Rietveld and J.J.P. Oud), Van Doesburg could only bring his plans of collective work of architects and painters to fruition when he met the young Cornelis van Eesteren in May 1922, who shared Van Doesburg’s ideal of the synthesis of arts. He later became a member of De Stijl and created several architectural projects together with Van Doesburg, for instance Maison d’artiste (1923), which Blotkamp (1990, p. 34) described as a “paradigm of collaboration between painter and architect as equal partners”. Although the actual cooperation did not last long, it did bring some major theoretical fruits with regard to collective art (cf. van Straaten, 1996).

At the occasion of De Stijl’s exhibition in the Gallery L’Effort Moderne held in October-November 1923, the group’s fifth manifesto titled Vers une construction collective (Manifeste V du Groupe “De Stijl”) [Towards collective construction (The 5^th Manifesto of “De Stijl” Group)] was issued by Van Doesburg, Van Eesteren and Rietveld. A year later it was published in De Stijl under the title “– □ + = R₄”, but with no mention of Rietveld. This text was preceded by another theoretical statement from 1923 also titled “Vers une construction collective” which called for the laws of construction to be established in light of the rules of economics, mathematics, technology, hygiene etc. According to T. van Doesburg (1924c, p. 89), the laws of construction “could not be imagined” and that “one discovered them only through collective effort and from experience”. Somehow as a response to it, the actual fifth manifesto of De Stijl appeared under the changed name directly afterwards. Its authors claimed to have collectively examined the laws and established the nature of modern architecture as a plastic unity of all the arts (T. van Doesburg, 1924a cf. T. van Doesburg et al., 1923).

The same issue of De Stijl featured one of Theo van Doesburg’s most important theoretical statements “Tot een beeldende architectuur” [Towards plastic architecture], also printed in Bouwkundig Weekblad as well as in Blok (T. van Doesburg, 1924a, 1924b, 1924c). The manifesto was a summary of Van Doesburg’s previous theoretical and practical endeavours, and it presented architecture as an organic synthesis and a monumental union of all modern plastic arts. As pointed out by van Straaten (1996, pp. 30–32), the fact that the text was signed solely by Van Doesburg, caused some animosity between him and Van Eesteren, which eventually led to the end of their collaboration. It is also worth noting that at the end of the Polish translation of this statement in Blok, Van Doesburg added a short comment where he emphasised that the new collective style could be born only when artists and architects work side by side and exchange views with each other—a post scriptum postulating collective efforts added to the very text which led to their failure.

The concepts of art synthesis and collective artistic efforts were also major issues for the Belgian avant-garde, in particular for 7 Arts. The journal itself—just like most avant-garde periodicals—may be regarded as a product of the collective work of artists, architects and writers. Of particular interest is the fact that its editors did not sign their critiques, as they were jointly and collectively responsible for all the articles, a status they repeatedly informed the reader throughout the first series of the magazine. Theories put forward in 7 Arts were closely related to contemporary viewpoints regarding the union of various disciplines expressed by the artists related to De Stijl or the Bauhaus (cf. Goyens de Heusch, 1976; Vandevoorde, 2013). Contemporary fascinations with the city, masses and machines symbolised the collective spirit of modern times and formed a source of inspiration for modern, social and collective art. This collective ideal could—according to Bourgeois (1923)—be best reflected both by architecture and poetry, but cinema was also perceived as a perfect example of collective art (cf. Chenoy, 1925; Dekeukelerie, 1927). Individual approaches were repeatedly condemned in 7 Arts, while collective efforts were praised: in one of the unsigned statements it was proclaimed: “Héroïque qui travaille en la collectivité, ayant su éteindre (…) la tare individualiste” [Heroic is the one who works collectively, and has been able to remove (…) the ballast of individualism] (Bourgeois et al., 1923 see also Werrie, 1926).

When it comes to Het Overzicht and other Belgian artists, however, their standpoints on the synthesis of arts differed substantially. Michel Seuphor—one of the magazine’s editors—had a positive approach towards the synthesis of modern arts, which can also be seen in his Parisian magazine Cercle et Carré, for instance:

Ingénieurs, architectes, peintres et sculpteurs travailleront en étroite collaboration, s’exprimant néanmoins chacun dans son propre domaine. L’architecte réalisera ainsi l’union intime de tous les arts plastiques (…). A ce moment, toute expression, toute création en forme d’objet d’art particulier basé presque toujours sur la propriété individuelle n’aura plus aucune raison d’être. L’architecture néoplastique réalisant (…) l’art collectif le plus pur. (Gorin, 1930)

[Engineers, architects, painters and sculptors will work in close collaboration, yet expressing themselves in their proper domain. Hence architecture will form an intimate union of all visual arts (…). At that moment all forms of expression, all the creation in the form of a work of particular art, almost always based on individual property, will have no more raison d’être. Neo-plastic architecture producing (…) the purest collective art.].

Jozef Peeters, on the other hand (Het Overzicht’s co-editor since November 1922), was a strong proponent of autonomous artworks, which might have some impact on the viewers, but they were principally to stay independent from each other (cf. Vandevoorde, 2013). Rejecting the postulate of collective unification of art, literature and architecture, Peeters (1921, 1922) claimed for instance that no literary or architectural content should influence painting, a view that Seuphor (1930, 1976) did not share.

As with the Low Countries, in Poland the collective approach to art found a fertile ground, which was particularly visible in Praesens. Like his Dutch and Belgian colleagues, Szymon Syrkus emphasised the links between architecture and visual arts in his programmatic statements. He referred for instance to bold compositions and colour arrangements “à la Mondrian or Van Doesburg” serving as inspiration for interior design (Syrkus, 1926, p. 10). Like most avant-garde architects of the period, Syrkus saw architecture not only as the art of arranging facades or simply constructing buildings, but also as the outcome of both engineering and aesthetic principles. For Syrkus (1926), architecture also functioned as the “bearings” of modern life and society, which should be perfectly adjusted to its changing dynamics and character. The so-called łożyskowość [bearingness] or architektonizacja [architectonisation] formed the essence of modern architecture, but it relied on other factors, among others sculpture, painting or economy. Although for Syrkus the societal impact of architecture was of utmost importance, it was also inseparably linked to the idea of architecture as the result of joint efforts of various crafts, as earlier claimed by the Dutch and Belgian avant-garde artists and architects.

The theory of Syrkus was actually an amalgam of two of the above discussed approaches: the collective work of artists and architects whose main goal was to create something which, on the one hand united all the arts in one coherent piece, and on the other hand fulfilled social needs. Similar was also the case of Henryk Stażewski: he shared Mondrian’s views on abstract art reflecting the universal aspects of the world, and at the same time—contrary to Mondrian—he also applied a collective approach to modern art, seeing architecture as the main domain shaping the new style. Perceiving space, colour and texture as interdependent and symbiotic, Stażewski (1926, p. 2) claimed that “malarstwo i rzeźba bez związku z architekturą są dziś nie do pomyślenia i nie mają najmniejszej racji bytu” [painting or sculpture separated from architecture is now quite inconceivable and unwarranted (transl.: Benson & Forgács, 2002, pp. 645–646)]. The new abstract and universal style was, according to Stażewski, profoundly collective and based on the rules of collective construction. Nevertheless, it did not exclude the artist’s personality or individual expression, a duality characteristic also for Mondrian.

Fascination with the synthesis of various artistic disciplines was visible in Blok from its first issue, which featured an editorial statement published in Polish and French. It criticised individualism in art and postulated: “Sztuka winna być nie przejawem indywidualistycznych zamierzeń artysty—lecz dziełem wysiłku zbiorowości.” (Stażewski et al., 1924) [Art should not be a manifestation of the artist’s individualism, but the result of collective efforts. (transl.: Benson & Forgács, 2002, pp. 491–492)]. Of interest was a new dimension with regard to collective art, which appeared in Polish theoretical statements, namely the claim that the development of art should be based on innovations and new insights constructed upon collective efforts of one’s predecessors, which was also voiced in this statement. Thus, in their deliberations on collective art, the editors of Blok not only saw it as the union of various disciplines, but also as a non-individualistic manner of creating art based on past collective achievements.

This viewpoint was further developed by Władysław Strzemiński in his text “B = 2” where he compared the process of art creation to mechanised and standardised forms of industrial production. Strzemiński (1924) postulated a “micrometric process of productive organisation of work”, in other words: collective efforts which were supposed to improve and objectify the process of art production. He saw it as much more effective in comparison to previous epochs when artists worked individually, starting from scratch every time. Strzemiński’s ideal was based on consistency, efficiency and objectivism, and his starting point were the achievements of the past—i.e. tradition—which should be turned into something entirely new. Paradoxically, according to Strzemiński (1924), “the further [from the starting point] we go, the more faithful we are to tradition” (transl.: Benson & Forgács, 2002, p. 498) since, by relying on tradition and re-defining it into new forms, an artist ensured the endurance of artistic thought throughout history.

The importance of collective efforts for Polish artists was also reflected in Blok’s manifesto “Co to jest konstruktywizm” [What is Constructivism]. Its fourth point referred to a “system of methodological collective work regulated by a conscious will and aiming at perfecting the results of collective achievements and at inventiveness” (Red., 1924; transl.: Benson & Forgács, 2002, p. 496). It was to be based on a practical approach, discipline, mechanization and the economic use of materials. Almost a year later, in the tenth issue of Blok, those standpoints were repeated in a bold statement: “Linja nowego stylu jest już wytknięta. Obecny okres jest odkrywczem i stopniowem udoskonalaniem osiągniętych poprzednio zdobyczy na drodze systematycznej, planowej kolektywnej pracy.” [The line of the new style has been already drawn. The current period is a creative and gradual perfectioning of prior achievements through systematic and planned collective work.] (Szczuka & Żarnower, 1925).

It is important to emphasise the fact that the authors of those statements, Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower, were related to the Polish Communist Party and their works revealed a strong leftist character, which was also visible in subsequent statements published in the communist magazine Dźwignia [Lever] established by Szczuka after the closure of Blok. Szczuka can be seen as representative of those avant-garde artists and intellectuals in Poland who, fascinated by Soviet productivity and captivated by the Communist ideals and its utopian promise of societal renewal, got politically engaged and treated art as a tool of ideological struggle. Not all avant-gardists in Poland, however, shared these views: for instance Strzemiński, having fled the Bolshevik Russia, opposed categorically to the subordination of art to Communist ideology and propaganda. Even though all Polish avant-garde artists did share the ideal of artistic and societal revolution, not all saw Communism as the proper means of concretising it. Interestingly, with time it became clear that not only nationalist right-wing circles, but also Socialist or even Communist movements in the interwar Poland rejected the left-oriented avant-garde as too bourgeois (cf. Luba, 2019; Russell, 2001; Turowski, 1981).

3. Unsuccessful attempts

Although most avant-garde artists propagated collective art, they had in fact substantially divergent approaches to this concept, which ultimately led to its failure. There are examples of successful implementation of the idea of the synthesis of arts, mostly between writers and artists (for instance Mondrian and Seuphor’s work Tableau-po ème (Textuel), Strzemiński and Julian Przyboś’s book Z ponad [From above] or the Neoplastic Room in Łódź). When it came to cooperating with architects, however, even though they were all eager to work together, major differences surfaced rapidly, bringing their cooperation to a quick end. As will be further illustrated by the case of Van Doesburg’s cooperation with Oud, or the endeavours of Praesens, avant-garde painters and sculptors turned out to have an abstract and theoretical—not to say utopian—vision of architectural-artistic creation, while for trained architects functional and down-to-earth solutions to architectural construction prevailed. The artists’ and architects’ egos and difficult characters, too, did not facilitate their cooperation, despite their exalted claims, such as: “Just as in the work of architecture all the parts abandon their own ego for the sake of a higher collective animation of the Total Work, in the same way in the theatrical work a multitude of artistic problems are concentrated, according to this specific higher law, for the sake of a new and greater unity.” (Gropius, 1923, p. 10 quoted in Roberts, 2011, pp. 159–160).

When it comes to the interwar avant-garde and its implementation of the Gesamtkunstwerk ideal, De Stijl is probably the most iconic formation that united representatives of various arts. Nevertheless, notwithstanding Van Doesburg’s fascination with the idea of a Total Work of Art, artists such as Mondrian or Bart van der Leck did not quite share his enthusiasm. Despite some interest in the concept, Mondrian remained sceptical and did not want to compromise his theoretical standpoints with the practical demands of architecture (Hoek, 1990, pp. 69–70; Blotkamp, 1994, pp. 128–129; cf. Mondrian, 1923). van der Leck (1917, 1918) also disapproved of architecture dominating the work of the artists, and he claimed that it should remain a colourless and neutral background for paintings. Such scepticism was probably related to his bad experience in collaborating with the architect H.P. Berlage in 1916 (cf. Blotkamp & Hilhorst, 1996, pp. 314–315).

Van Doesburg made numerous attempts to collaborate with architects such as Jan Wils, Oud or Van Eesteren, but they did not manage to maintain any meaningful cooperation, despite mutual enthusiasm in working together. Oud’s cooperation with Van Doesburg came to an end during the course of 1921 after the latter submitted colour solutions to Oud’s housing project Spangen in Rotterdam, which was later reflected in their writings: T. van Doesburg (1921, 1922) criticised Oud, trying to prove that he had actually never been a De Stijl-architect, and Oud (1922), on the other hand, saw Van Doesburg as a danger to architecture because of him being an idealistic artist and not an architect. Worth mentioning is also the fact that when Szymon Syrkus wrote to Oud in order to inform him about the newly-established Praesens, which was to publish Oud’s works as well as contributions from Rietveld and Van Doesburg, Oud tried to discourage Syrkus from disseminating the latter’s works:

Pour ce qui concerne la collaboration de M. Van Doesburg, permettez-moi de vous avertir que c’est bien nécessaire de contrôler bien ce qu’on publie de lui. M. Van Doesburg est un peintre avec beaucoup d’esprit, qui a écrit d’articles excellents sur la peinture moderne, mais qui – voyant finir la peinture en sa forme présente s’est sauvé dans l’architecture sans aussi le moindre idée de bâtir. N’ayant jamais bâti il proclame une architecture spéculative qui fait beaucoup de mal à l’œuvre des architectes modernes sérieux. (…) pour ça c’est absolument nécessaire de savoir précisément ce qu’on publiera de lui et ce qu’on ne publiera pas. (Letter from Oud to Syrkus from 12 April 1926; Archief J.J.P. Oud, Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, inv. nr. 29:26:46)

[With regard to the cooperation with M. Van Doesburg, let me warn you that it is indeed necessary to strictly control which works of his get published. M. Van Doesburg is a painter with much spirit, who has written excellent articles on modern painting, but who – seeing the painting end in its present form, has fled to architecture without the slightest idea how to build. Having never built he proclaims a speculative architecture which badly hurts the works of serious architects. (…) therefore it is absolutely necessary to know precisely which works of his will be published and what will not be published.].

Eventually, the first issue of Praesens did publish works by Van Doesburg (1926), but when sending the magazine to Oud, Syrkus attempted to somehow justify this fact (Letter from Syrkus to Oud from 16 June 1926; Archief J.J.P. Oud, Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, inv. nr. 31:26:108). Later, Van Doesburg tried to implement his theory of monumental art together with Van Eesteren. As mentioned above, the publication of the manifesto “Tot een beeldende architectuur” in 1924 led to a serious conflict with Van Eesteren, who claimed that the principal conclusions listed in the article had been reached together with Van Doesburg who then presented them under his own name only (van Straaten, 1996, pp. 30–32). Hence, the three important theoretical texts on the synthesis of arts published in De Stijl vol. 6, nr. 6/7 (van Doesburg and van Eesteren 1924b, 1924a; T. van Doesburg, 1924c) actually marked the end of collaboration between artists and architects.

Just as in case of the Dutch De Stijl and Van Doesburg’s attempts to cooperate with various architects, similar issues also appeared in the case of the Polish Praesens which united architects, painters and sculptors. Their first and only joint project for Powszechna Wystawa Krajowa [Polish National Exhibition] held in 1929 in Poznań, led to serious hostilities within the group, its split, and the subsequent creation of the a.r. group around Katarzyna Kobro, Władysław Strzemiński and Henryk Stażewski who had left Praesens claiming that Syrkus and other architects destroyed their designs for the exhibition (cf. Turowski, 1981, pp. 74–78, 274).

As was the case with the conflicts on the Dutch avant-garde scene, Strzemiński saw architects as too “down to earth” and too preoccupied with the practical, prosaic aspects of their designs, whilst for Syrkus the social and functional aspects of architecture prevailed. Strzemiński expressed his disappointment with modern architects in his writings (cf. Strzemiński, 1929, 1931, 1934; [Kobro et al., 1930, 1932), as did Syrkus (1930, p. 31) in opposition, who even when claiming that “modern technique (…) co-creates the frameworks where the courageous abstract creation could materialise in the art of construction” did not really demand for artists to be involved in the process. Quite the opposite, according to Syrkus, architecture and architects held the prevailing position and the artistic component should stay limited and depend on social and technical matters.

I actually share Turowski’s (1973, pp. 271–272; 2002, pp. 132–134) view that Strzemiński’s vision of architecture was actually utopian and scarcely possible to put into practice, somewhat in contrary to his functionalistic postulates. This is to be seen for instance in Strzemiński’s 1930 design for Julian Przyboś’s house which is more of a spatial composition of colourful planes, rather than an architectural concept (cf. Kurc-Maj & Saciuk-Gąsowska, 2017, p. 218). In fact, Strzemiński seemed to discard practical architectural solutions to every-day issues, as they did not lead to the perfect “ultimate form” of his former master Kazimir Malevich, even though he did claim that architecture was to regulate the every-day functioning of its users (Strzemiński, 1931, 1934). Interestingly, Malevich’s utopian quasi-architectural projects, the so-called architectons – which too had more to do with sculpture than with constructible architecture—were much appreciated by Kobro (1929) who perceived them as a preview of the new era of architecture. So too did T. van Doesburg (1930/1931, p. 358) in his text on modern Polish architecture from Het Bouwbedrijf, where he criticised rationalistic and functionalistic architecture, stipulating its rapid separation from the purest “architecture on the highest level” envisaged by Malevich and exemplified by his semi-architectural works. On the other hand, when discussing the activities of Van Doesburg, Kobro (1929) claimed that in his few artistic/architectural experiments he had indeed tried to come up with solutions to unify the arts, but these attempts were neither painting, nor sculpture, nor architecture. It shows how distant and varied the artists’ and architects’ theories regarding the synthesis of various artistic domains were, which in turn indicates that their long-lasting and stable cooperation was scarcely possible.

4. Closing remarks

The purpose of this article was to examine interwar avant-garde programmatic writings from the point of view of the Total Work of Art, and to explore the intricacies of its practical implementation. The analysed manifestos and programmatic writings of Polish, Dutch and Belgian provenance do demonstrate that “avant-garde and the Total Work of Art belong together”, as pointed out by Roberts (2011, p. 147). Persuaded that modern art could have major impact on the society and transmit the modern spirit it encapsulated, architects, artists and writers from various nodes of the avant-garde network were united in their attempts to cooperate and to create an integrated work of art under the umbrella of the nineteenth-century principle of Gesamtkunstwerk. Nevertheless, although a sizeable number of artists repeatedly made attempts to apply this principle in their artistic endeavours, many of them failed to put it into practice. Was the modernist road towards the Gesamtkunstwerk deemed to be futile (cf. Lægring, 2020)? As the examples described in this article illustrate, theories and approaches of avant-garde artists and architects did differ much, with one’s own field seen as more pivotal. Hence the conclusion that when it came to the actual implementation of the Gesamtkunstwerk ideal, the unification of arts and the aesthetical renewal, too, proved to be a hardly possible dream.

Quoting Brecht (1967), one of the critics of Wagnerian understanding of Gesamtkunstwerk, the fusion of various arts could in fact only lead to a degradation of each of them:

Solange ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ bedeutet daß das Gesamte ein Aufwaschen ist, solange also Künste ‘verschmelzt’ werden sollen, müssen die einzelnen Elemente all gleichermaßen degradiert werden, in dem jedes nur Stichwortbringer für das anderes ein kann. Der Schmelzprozeß erfaßt den Zuschauer, der ebenfalls eingeschmolzen wird und einen passiven (leidenden) Teil des Gesamtkunstwerks darstellt. Solche Magie ist natürlich zu bekämpfen.

[So long as the expression ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ means that the integration is a muddle, so long as the arts are supposed to be ‘fused’ together, the various elements will all be equally degraded, and each will act as a mere ‘cue’ to the rest. The process of fusion extends to the spectator who gets thrown into the melting pot too and becomes a passive (suffering) part of the Total Work of Art. Witch-craft of this sort must of course be fought against. (transl.: Heimbecker, 2008, p. 494)]

In fact, the abovementioned divergences and disputes between architects, artists and writers that arouse during the implementation of the idea of “aesthetic borderlessness” that they themselves so eagerly postulated, seem to attest to that viewpoint.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

National Science Centre, Poland, grant [2014/13/N/HS2/02757].

Notes on contributors

Michał Wenderski

Michał Wenderski, PhD, is assistant professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, where he specialises in modern Dutch and Flemish art and literature. His research is devoted to the history of cultural mobility between Poland and the Low Countries in the fields of literature, fine arts and architecture. He is currently head of a research project devoted to Cold War international cultural relationships between Poland and the Netherlands.