A Total Artwork Writ Small

Wagner, Klimt, and the artists of the Secession dreamed of a Total Artwork (a Gesamtkunstwerk in German). Commissioned by the publisher Martin Gerlach, the Viennese illustrator Carl Otto Czeschka succeeded in a paradoxical accomplishment: he created one in small format, for kids. Die Nibelungen, published in 1909, was a slender volume (just 16 pages) intended for schoolchildren; it is now a gem sought after by bibliophiles. To ensure everything was perfect and the placement just so, Czeschka oversaw every detail: the lettering, the layout, the decorative borders framing the illustrations and text, the double-page spreads, even the colophon.