Gesamtkunstwerk
For years I have been trying to think of the way to describe Olana as an artistic whole. At Olana, we become part of a landscape created by a painter. To call it a “three-dimensional work of art” does not do it justice, since the dimensionality is just one small aspect. The landscape grows, and changes with the season and the hour. Above it the sky is constantly in flux. And there is the sound of birds and the wind, the perfume of the flowers, the sun that makes you squint. And that is just outside. Inside, the villa puts you in the mind of the artist and his world. An exhibit in Germany on artists’ houses at Vill Stuck, which featured Olana among many others, provides the word: gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art.” That is the word I’ve been looking for. It does not exist in English, which explains the failure to find the right phrase in English.
