The article centres on the evolution of the art synthesis problem in aesthetics in the XIX–XX centuries. The author examines the internal logic of the historical development of art synthesis concepts in aesthetic theory and artistic practice. They embrace Romanticism, Symbolism, early Russian avantgarde (metaphysical), and different versions (life-building) of the European avantgarde, such as Dadaism, Bauhaus, Futurism. The author compares them with their contemporary approaches. The analysis allows us to conclude that belonging to one cultural paradigm, according to which art wants to be more than art, actively interfering with human life and society unites strategies of artistic synthesis. The differences in the approaches to the problem of artistic synthesis in the European culture of the XIX–XXth and the XXIst centuries are associated with a set of problems to be solved. First of all, the focus of realization of this synthesis is either to establish harmony between artistic consciousness and existence or to transform social reality or to satisfy a person’s need for self-affi rmation. This focus also determines the sphere of artistic synthesis — in consciousness, language, or social or anthropological practice. In contemporary studies of art synthesis, the examination of new potentials of art involvement into the reality of life, engagement into the art-aesthetic communication of active recipients as a co-participant of the art event continues.