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{{short description|Art or other objects that appeal to popular rather than high art tastes}}
'''Kitsch''' originates from the ] term ''etwas verkitschen'' (which has a similar meaning to "knock off" in ]). It categorizes ] that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. The term is also used more loosely in referring to any art that it is pretentious or in bad taste. It has been voted as one of the ten English words that are ].
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{{About|the art term}}
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]'' painting by ], is a common example of modern kitsch.]]
] (2010) is a self-aware display of kitsch, specifically as a combination of opulence and cuteness.]]


'''''Kitsch''''' ({{IPAc-en|k|ɪ|tʃ}} {{Respell|KICH}}; ] from German){{efn|Despite being a direct borrowing from modern German, kitsch is most often left uncapitalized and without ] (cf. ], '']''). Pronunciation may also be colloquially realized as {{IPAc-en|k|ɪ|ʃ}} {{Respell|KISH}}.}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kitsch|title=Definition of KITSCH|website=www.merriam-webster.com}}</ref> is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as ] imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal ].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|author-link=Theodor W. Adorno|author-link2=Max Horkheimer|date=2002|title=Dialectic of Enlightenment - Philosophical Fragments|url=http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~randall/Readings%20W2/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170614021407/http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~randall/Readings%20W2/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf|archive-date=14 June 2017|access-date=22 October 2021|website=Wayback Machine Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Dutton|first=Denis|title=Kitsch|date=2003|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t046768|work=Oxford Art Online|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t046768|access-date=2021-10-22}}</ref>
Because the word was brought into use as a response to a large amount of ] in the ] where the ] of art work was confused with a sense of exaggerated sentimentality or ], kitsch most closely associated with art that is sentimental, mawkish, or maudlin; however, it can be used to refer to any type of art which is deficient for similar reasons - whether it tries to appear sentimental, cool, glamorous, theatrical, or creative, kitsch is said to be a gesture imitative of the superficial appearances of art. It is often said that kitsch relies on merely repeating convention and formula, lacking the sense of creativity and originality displayed in genuine art.


The modern ] traditionally opposed kitsch for its ] tendencies, its superficial relationship with the ] and its naturalistic standards of ]. In the first half of the 20th century, kitsch was used in reference to mass-produced, ] products that lacked the conceptual depth of ]. However, since the emergence of ] in the 1950s, kitsch has taken on newfound highbrow appeal, often wielded in knowingly ], humorous or ] manners.
==History==


To brand visual art as "kitsch" is often still ], though not exclusively. Art deemed kitsch may be enjoyed in an entirely positive and ] manner. For example, it carries the ability to be quaint or "quirky" without being offensive on the surface, as in the '']'' paintings.
Though its precise ] is uncertain, it is widely held that the word originated in the ] art ]s of the ] and ], used to describe cheap, hotly marketable pictures or sketches (the English term mispronounced by Germans, or elided with the German verb ''verkitschen'', to 'make cheap'). Another German word kitsch is connected to is the verb ''kitschen'', meaning "to scrape up mud from the street". Kitsch appealed to the crass tastes of the newly moneyed Munich ] who, like most ], thought they could achieve the status they envied in the traditional class of cultural elites by apeing, however clumsily, the most apparent features of their cultural habits.


Along with visual art, the quality of kitsch can be used to describe works of ], ] or any other creative medium. Kitsch relates to ], as they both incorporate irony and extravagance.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scruton|first1=Roger|author-link1=Roger Scruton|date=21 February 2014|title=A fine line between art and kitsch|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscruton/2014/02/21/a-fine-line-between-art-and-kitsch/#7fbd667e3679|website=Forbes|access-date=16 January 2017}}</ref>
The word eventually came to mean "to slap (a work of art) together".
Kitsch became defined as an aesthetically impoverished object of shoddy production, meant more to identify the ] with a newly acquired class status than to invoke a genuine aesthetic response. Kitsch was considered aesthetically impoverished and morally dubious, and to have sacrificed aesthetic life to a pantomime of aesthetic life, usually, but not always, in the interest of signalling one's class status.


==History==
===Avant-Garde and Kitsch===
{{Expand section|date=January 2019}}
] ] and milk jug set, themed after an old ]]]
]
] in Poland, as an example of kitsch in sacred architecture]]
As a descriptive term, ''kitsch'' originated in the art markets of ], Germany in the 1860s and the 1870s, describing cheap, popular, and marketable pictures and sketches.<ref>Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity. Kitsch, p.&nbsp;234.</ref> In ''Das Buch vom Kitsch'' (''The Book of Kitsch''), published in 1936, ] defined it as a professional expression "born in a painter's studio".


The study of kitsch was done almost exclusively in Germany until the 1970s, with ] being an important scholar in the field.<ref name="menninghaus">{{cite book |last=Menninghaus |first=Winfried |title=Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity |publisher=re.press |year=2009 |isbn=9780980544091 |editor=Andrew Benjamin and Charles Rice |pages=39–58 |chapter=On the Vital Significance of 'Kitsch': Walter Benjamin's Politics of 'Bad Taste' |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UFx1D_BC5tsC&pg=PA40}}</ref>
]'s '']'' wins the kitsch label because it lacks interesting features: contrast, coordinated lines, and a worthy subject but rather leans toward the melodramatic.]]


Kitsch is regarded as a modern phenomenon, coinciding with social changes in recent centuries such as the ], ], mass production, modern materials and media such as ]s, ] and ], the rise of the ] and ]{{emdash}}all of which have factored into a perception of oversaturation of art produced for the popular taste.
The word became ] in the ] by the theorists ], ], and ], who each sought to define ] and kitsch as being opposites. To the art world of the time, the immense popularity of kitsch was perceived as a threat to culture. The arguments of all three theorists relied on an implicit definition of kitsch as a type of ], a ] term meaning a mindset present within the structures of ] that is misguided as to its own desires and wants. Marxists suppose there to be a disjunction between the real state of affairs and the way that they phenomenally appear.


==Analysis==
Adorno perceived this in terms of what he called the "]", where the art is controlled and formulated by the needs of the market and given to a passive population which accepts it &mdash; what is marketed is art that is non-challenging and formally incoherent, but which serves its purpose of giving the audience leisure and something to watch. It helps serve the oppression of the population by capitalism by distracting them from their ]. Contrarily, art for Adorno is supposed to be subjective, challenging, and oriented against the oppressiveness of the power structure. He claimed that kitsch is ] of ], and a parody of ].


===Kitsch in art theory and aesthetics===
Broch called kitsch "the evil within the value-system of art" &mdash; that is, if true art is "good", kitsch is "evil". While art was creative, Broch held that kitsch depended solely on plundering creative art by adopting formulas that seek to imitate it, limiting itself to conventions and demanding a totalitarianism of those recognizable conventions. To him, kitsch was not the same as bad art; it formed a system of its own. He argued that kitsch involved trying to achieve "beauty" instead of "truth" and that any attempt to make something beautiful would lead to kitsch.
] writer ] argues that the essence of kitsch is imitation: kitsch mimics its immediate predecessor with no regard to ethics—it aims to copy the beautiful, not the good.<ref>{{cite book|last=Broch|first=Hermann|title=Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age. Six Essays by Hermann Broch| year=2002| publisher=Counterpoint| isbn=9781582431680|chapter=Evil in the Value System of Art|pages=13–40}}</ref> According to Walter Benjamin, kitsch, unlike art, is a utilitarian object lacking all critical distance between object and observer. According to critic Winfried Menninghaus, Benjamin's stance was that kitsch "offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, without sublimation".<ref name="menninghaus"/> In a short essay from 1927, Benjamin observed that an artist who engages in kitschy reproductions of things and ideas from a bygone age deserved to be called a "furnished man"<ref>{{Cite web |title=Walter Benjamin: Dream Kitsch (trans. Edward Viesel) - - |url=https://www.edwardviesel.eu/0056.html |access-date=2022-12-20 |website=www.edwardviesel.eu}}</ref> (in the way that someone rents a "]" where everything is already supplied).


Kitsch is less about the thing observed than about the observer.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Eaglestone|first1=Robert|title=The Broken Voice: Reading Post-Holocaust Literature|date=25 May 2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0191084201|page=155}}</ref> According to ], "Kitsch is fake art, expressing fake emotions, whose purpose is to deceive the consumer into thinking he feels something deep and serious."<ref name=Scruton>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30439633|title=A Point of View: The strangely enduring power of kitsch|work=BBC News|date=12 December 2014}}</ref>
Greenberg held similar views; believing that the ] arose in order to defend ] standards from the decline of taste involved in consumer society, and seeing kitsch and art as opposites. He outlined this in his famous essay "]". One of his more controversial claims was that kitsch was equivalent to ]: "All kitsch is academic, and conversely, all that is academic is kitsch." He argued this based on the fact that Academic art, such as that in the ], was heavily centered in rules and formulations that were taught and tried to make art into something learnable and easily expressible. He later came to withdraw from his position of equating the two, as it became heavily criticized. While its true that some Academic art might have been kitsch, not all of it, and not all kitsch is academic.


Tomáš Kulka, in ''Kitsch and Art'', starts from two basic facts that kitsch "has an undeniable mass-appeal" and "considered (by the art-educated elite) bad", and then proposes three essential conditions:
Other theorists over time have also linked kitsch to ]. The ] writer ], in his book ] (]), defined it as "the absolute denial of ]." His argument was that kitsch functions by excluding from view everything that humans find difficult to come to terms with, offering instead a sanitised view of the world in which "all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions."
# Kitsch depicts a beautiful or highly emotionally charged subject;
# The depicted subject is instantly and effortlessly identifiable;
# Kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations related to the depicted subject.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Kitsch and art|last=Tomas|first=Kulka|publisher=Pennsylvania State Univ. Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0271015941|oclc=837730812}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last=Higgins | first=Kathleen Marie | last2=Kulka | first2=Tomas | title=Kitsch and Art | journal=The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism | publisher=JSTOR | volume=56 | issue=4 | year=1998 | issn=0021-8529 | doi=10.2307/432137 | jstor=432137 | page=410}}</ref>


===Kitsch in Milan Kundera's ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''===
In its desire to paper over the complexities and contradictions of real life, kitsch, Kundera suggested, is intimately linked with totalitarianism. In a healthy ], diverse interest groups compete and negotiate with one another to produce a generally acceptable ]; by contrast, "everything that infringes on kitsch," including ], doubt, and ], "must be banished for life" in order for kitsch to survive. Therefore, Kundera wrote, "Whenever a single political movement corners power we find ourselves in the realm of ''totalitarian kitsch''."


The concept of kitsch is a central motif in ] 1984 novel '']''. Towards the end of the novel, the book's narrator posits that the act of defecation (and specifically, the shame that surrounds it) poses a metaphysical challenge to the theory of divine creation: "Either/or: either shit is acceptable (in which case don't lock yourself in the bathroom!) or we are created in an unacceptable manner".<ref>Kundera, Milan (1984). ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''. Harper Perennial. p. 248</ref> Thus, in order for us to continue to believe in the essential propriety and rightness of the universe (what the narrator calls "the categorical agreement with being"), we live in a world "in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist". For Kundera's narrator, this is the definition of kitsch: an "aesthetic ideal" which "excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence".
For Kundera, "Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch."


The novel goes on to relate this definition of kitsch to politics, and specifically—given the novel's setting in ] around the time of the ]—to ] and ]. He gives the example of the Communist ] ceremony, and of the sight of children running on the grass and the feeling this is supposed to provoke. This emphasis on feeling is fundamental to how kitsch operates:
===Academic Art===


<blockquote>Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.<ref name="auto1">Kundera, Milan (1984). ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''. Harper Perennial. p. 251</ref></blockquote>
] ] is still often seen in terms of being kitsch, though this view is coming under attack from modern critics. Perhaps it is best to resort to the theory of Broch, who argued that the genesis of kitsch was in ], which wasn't kitsch itself but which opened the door for kitsch taste, by emphasizing the need for expressive and evocative art work. ], which continued this tradition Romanticism, has a twofold reason for its association with kitsch.


According to the narrator, kitsch is "the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements"; however, where a society is dominated by a single political movement, the result is "totalitarian kitsch":
It is not that it was found to be accessible &mdash; in fact, it was under its reign that the difference between ] and ] was first defined by intellectuals. ] strove towards remaining in a tradition rooted in the aesthetic and intellectual experience. Intellectual and aesthetic qualities of the work were certainly there &mdash; good examples of Academic art were even admired by the avant garde artists who would rebel against it. There was some critique, however, that in being "too beautiful" and democratic it made art ''look'' easy, non-involving and superficial.


<blockquote>When I say "totalitarian," what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously).<ref name="auto1"/></blockquote>
Many Academic artists tried to use subjects from low art and ennoble them as high art by subjecting them to interest in the inherent qualities of form and beauty, trying to ] the art world. In ], certain academics even advocated that the artist should work for the marketplace. In some sense the goals of democratization succeeded, and the society was flooded with Academic art, the public lining up to see art exhibitions as they do to see movies today. ] in art became widespread, as did the practice of art making, and there was a blurring between high and low culture. This often led to poorly made or poorly conceived artworks being accepted as high art. Often art which was found to be kitsch showed technical talent, such as in creating accurate representations, but lacked good taste.


Kundera's concept of "totalitarian kitsch" has since been invoked in the study of the art and culture of regimes such as ], ], ] and Iraq under ].<ref>Makiya, Kanan (2011). Review: What Is Totalitarian Art? Cultural Kitsch From Stalin to Saddam. ''Foreign Affairs''. '''90''' (3): 142–148</ref> Kundera's narrator ends up condemning kitsch for its "true function" as an ideological tool under such regimes, calling it "a folding screen set up to curtain off death".<ref>Kundera, Milan (1984). ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''. Harper Perennial. p. 253</ref>
Secondly, the subjects and images presented in Academic art, though original in their first expression, were disseminated to the public in the form of prints and ]s &mdash; which was often actively encouraged by the artists &mdash; and these images were endlessly copied in kitschified form until they became well known ]s.


===Melancholic kitsch vs. nostalgic kitsch===
The avant garde reacted to these developments by separating itself from the aspects of art such as pictoral representation and harmony that were appreciated by the public, in order to make a stand for the importance of the aesthetic. Many modern critics try not to pigeonhole Academic art into the kitsch side of the art/kitsch ], recognizing its historical role in the genesis of both the avant garde and kitsch.


]
===Postmodernism===
In her 1999 book ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience'', cultural historian ] develops a theory of kitsch that situates its emergence as a specifically nineteenth-century phenomenon, relating it to the feelings of loss elicited by a world transformed by science and industry.<ref>Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience''. Bloomsbury.</ref> Focusing on examples such as ], ], ] and ], Olalquiaga uses Benjamin's concept of the ] to argue for the utopian potential of "melancholic kitsch", which she differentiates from the more commonly discussed "nostalgic kitsch".<ref>Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience''. Bloomsbury. pp. 26, 75</ref>


These two types of kitsch correspond to two different forms of memory. Nostalgic kitsch functions through "reminiscence", which "sacrifices the intensity of experience for a conscious or fabricated sense of continuity":
] welcomed people with a kitch sign decades before this photo was taken.]]


<blockquote>Incapable of tolerating the intensity of the moment, reminiscence selects and consolidates an event's acceptable parts into a memory perceived as complete. This reconstructed experience is frozen as an emblem of itself, becoming a cultural fossil.<ref>Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience''. Bloomsbury. p. 292</ref></blockquote>
With the emergence of ] in the ], the borders between kitsch and high art became blurred again. One development was the approval of what is called "] taste". Camp refers to an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered corny, such as ] with her tutti-frutti hats, or otherwise kitsch, such as popular culture events which are particularly dated or inappropriately serious, such as the low-budget science fiction movies of the ] and ]. "]" is derived from the ] ] term ''camper'', which means "to pose in an exaggerated fashion." ] argued that camp was an attraction to the human qualities which expressed themselves in "failed attempts at seriousness", the qualities of having a particular and unique style and of reflecting the sensibilities of the era. It involved an aesthetic of artifice rather than of nature.


In contrast, melancholic kitsch functions through "remembrance", a form of memory that Olalquiaga links to the "]", which attempts "to repossess the experience of intensity and immediacy through an object".<ref name="auto">Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience''. Bloomsbury. p. 291</ref> While reminiscence translates a remembered event to the realm of the symbolic ("deprived of immediacy in favour of representational meaning"), remembrance is "the memory of the unconscious", which "sacrific the continuity of time for the intensity of the experience".<ref>Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience''. Bloomsbury. p. 294, 292</ref> Far from denying death, melancholic kitsch can only function through a recognition of its multiple "deaths" as a fragmentary remembrance that is subsequently commodified and reproduced. It "glorifies the perishable aspect of events, seeking in their partial and decaying memory the confirmation of its own temporal dislocation".<ref>Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). ''The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience''. Bloomsbury. p. 298</ref>
Much of ] attempted to incorporate images from popular culture and kitsch; artists were able to maintain legitimacy by saying they were "quoting" imagery to make conceptual points, usually with the appropriation being ironic. In ], a movement arose called the ] ("new new"), which took a different route: instead of quoting kitsch in an ironic stance, it founded itself in a ] which embraced the ugliness and garrishness, emulating it as a sort of anti-aesthetic.


Thus, for Olalquiaga, melancholic kitsch is able to function as a Benjaminian dialectical image: "an object whose decayed state exposes and reflects its utopian possibilities, a remnant constantly reliving its own death, a ruin".<ref name="auto"/>
] and ] posed as an interesting challenge, because, like kitsch, they downplayed the formal structure of the artwork in favor of elements which enter it by relating to other spheres of life.


==Further usage==
Despite this, many in the art world continue to have an adherence to some sense of the dichotomy between art and kitsch, excluding all sentimental and realistic art from being considered seriously. This has come under attack by critics who argue for a reappreciation of Academic art and traditional figurative painting, without the concern for it appearing innovative or new. A different tactic is taken by the ] artist ], who composed a ] entitled "]", where he makes a ] point of declaring himself a ''Kitsch painter'' rather than an ''artist'', even though very few critics would actually think of his artwork as kitsch.


===Historical fiction===
Nerdrum has claimed that in his career and the career of many other artists, the art establishment, what he calls the Curatoriat, imposes values and prevents honest personal expression - he turns around the formulations of Adorno and Kundera. He states that while art serves the public, kitsch serves personal expression; art serves politics, while kitsch loses itself in the eternal and is pure ], "naked talent exposing itself". Nerdrum declares: "Art exists for art itself and addresses the public. Kitsch serves life and addresses the human being."
Jewish-American author ] coined the term "]" to describe mass-market, overly sentimental depictions of ] from the end of the ] onwards, including works inspired by his own graphic novel on the subject, '']''. The term is usually used to criticize works seen as relying on ] and mass recognition to commercialize the experiences of ], such as '']'' or '']'', but also includes more positively received works like Polanski's '']''.<ref>Audi, Anthony. ''Literary Hub'', 22 March 2017. Retrieved 7 July 2024.</ref><ref>Bourne, Michael. , ''The Millions'', 22 November 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2024.</ref><ref>Corliss, Richard. , ''Time'', 1 January, 2009. Retrieved 7 July 2024.</ref>


===Reclamation===
Postmodernism is also under attack by Nerdrum, because it holds to a camp taste, which only appreciates kitsch in terms of the irony of a "failed seriousness", while he argues that kitsch should in fact be looked at as real, sincere expression of beauty.
The ] is an international movement of classical painters, founded{{clarify|Sources indicate that this was more of an aestethic statement than the founding of a movement|date=September 2014}} in 1998 upon a philosophy proposed by ],<ref>E.J. Pettinger {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120407050738/http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/the-kitsch-campaign/Content?oid=926148|date=7 April 2012}} "The Kitsch Campaign" , 29 December 2004.</ref> which he clarified in his 2001 book ''On Kitsch'',<ref>Dag Solhjell and Odd Nerdrum. ''On Kitsch'', Kagge Publishing, August 2001, {{ISBN|8248901238}}.</ref> in cooperation with Jan-Ove Tuv and others incorporating the techniques of the ]s with narrative, ], and emotionally charged imagery.


==See also==
In any case, whatever difficulty there is in defining its boundaries with art, the word kitsch is still in common usage to label anything felt in ].
*{{annotated link|Cliché}}
*{{annotated link|Lowbrow (art movement)}}
*{{annotated link|Museum of Bad Art}}
*{{annotated link|Poshlost}}
*]—in ''],'' ] for entertaining Oceania's working class
;Notable examples
*{{annotated link|Velvet Elvis}}
*{{annotated link|Chinese Girl|''Chinese Girl''}}
*{{annotated link|Christmas cards}}
*{{annotated link|Chocolate box art}}
*{{annotated link|Thomas Kinkade}}


==Examples== ==References ==
'''Informational notes'''
{{Notelist}}


'''Citations'''
One of the first painters that served as a demonstrative example of kitsch is the ] ]. Despised by the art world, he was nevertheless loved by the people. He became famous for his numerous variations of the '']'', where he painted exotic looking ] in a ] style, and for sentimental portraits of children with their pet ]s. Another artist working in a similar vein was ], who painted mostly portraits of waif children; but whether her subject was child, adult, or animal, all of her pictures had very large, staring eyes that always directly faced the viewer.
{{Reflist}}


'''Bibliography'''
A modern example of a painter considered by many to be producing kitsch is the commercially successful ], who brands himself the "Painter of Light™" and claims he is "the nation's most collected living artist." Kinkade paints scenes of stone cottages, lighthouses, cobble stone streets, rustic villages, and other vistas, with emphasis on the glittery ornamentation in the play of light and natural folliage. His work is meant to be sentimental, patriotic, quaint, spiritual, and inspirational.
* {{cite book | last=Horkheimer | first=Max | last2=Adorno | first2=Theodor W. | editor-last1=Schmid Noerr | editor-first1=Gunzelin | title=Dialectic of enlightenment : philosophical fragments | publication-place=Stanford, California | date=2002 | isbn=978-0-8047-8809-0 | oclc=919087055 | author-link=Max Horkheimer | author-link2=Theodor W. Adorno | translator-last1=Jephcott |translator-first1=Edmund | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170614021407/http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~randall/Readings%20W2/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf | url = http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~randall/Readings%20W2/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf | archive-date = June 14, 2017}}


'''Further reading'''
Another painter who is commonly used as an example of kitsch is the ] ], born in ]. His painting involves muscular heroes, voluptuous ladies, and monsters, all depicted in a fantasy setting. Critics of his paintings find them garrish and gaudy in similar ways to ] shows in ].
* Adorno, Theodor (2001). ''The Culture Industry''. Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-25380-2}}

* ] (2008). "Wabi and Kitsch: Two Japanese Paradigms" in ''Æ: Canadian Aesthetics Journal'' 15.
Of course, these are only strong, defining examples of what art purists refer to as kitsch--many would say that it saturates all popular culture, and some would equate popular culture and kitsch as being one and the same; as ] remarked, kitsch is "all that is spurious in the life of our times."
* ] (2019) ''The New Aesthetics of Deculturation: Neoliberalism, Fundamentalism and Kitsch'' (Bloomsbury). Foreword by Olivier Roy.

*Braungart, Wolfgang (2002). "Kitsch. Faszination und Herausforderung des Banalen und Trivialen". Max Niemeyer Verlag. {{ISBN|3-484-32112-1}}/0083-4564.
==Quotations==
* ] (2001). "Kant, Art and Art History: moments of discipline". ]. {{ISBN|0-521-80018-8}}.

* ] (1969, translated from the 1968 Italian version, ''Il Kitsch''). ''Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste'', Universe Books. LCCN 78-93950
*"Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times." -- ], "]", 1939.
* ] (1998). "The Kitsch Style and the Age of Kitsch," in J. Goudsblom and S. Mennell (eds) ''The Norbert Elias Reader''. Oxford: ].
*"The more romantic a work of art, or a landscape, the quicker its repetitions are perceived as kitsch or "slush". -- ], 1949
* Gelfert, Hans-Dieter (2000). "Was ist Kitsch?". ] in Göttingen. {{ISBN|3-525-34024-9}}.
*"itsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence." -- ], 1984
* Giesz, Ludwig (1971). ''Phänomenologie des Kitsches''. 2. vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. . Reprint (1994): Ungekürzte Ausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: ]. {{ISBN|3-596-12034-9}} / {{ISBN|978-3-596-12034-5}}.
*"Kitsch is the expression of passion at all levels, and not the servant of truth. It keeps relative to religion and truth... Truth, kitsch leaves for (modern) art. In kitsch skill is the important criteria.... Kitsch serves life and seeks the individual." ], "Kitsch - The Difficult Choice", 1998.
* Gorelik, Boris (2013). ''Incredible Tretchikoff: Life of an artist and adventurer''. Art / Books, London. {{ISBN|978-1-908970-08-4}}

* Greenberg, Clement (1978). ''Art and Culture''. ]. {{ISBN|0-8070-6681-8}}
==References==
* Holliday, Ruth and Potts, Tracey (2012) Kitsch! Cultural Politics and Taste, Manchester University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-7190-6616-0}}

* Karpfen, Fritz (1925). "Kitsch. Eine Studie über die Entartung der Kunst". Weltbund-Verlag, Hamburg.
*''Culture Industry''. (2001). Adorno, Theodor, Bernstein, J. M., Routledge. ISBN 0415253802
* Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1990). "The Modern System of the Arts" (In "Renaissance Thought and the Arts"). ]. {{ISBN|978-0-691-02010-5}}
*''Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age''. (2003). Broch, Hermann, Counterpoint Press. ISBN 158243168X
*''Art and Culture''. (1978). Greenberg, Clement, Beacon Press. ISBN 0807066818 * Kulka, Tomas (1996). ''Kitsch and Art''. ]. {{ISBN|0-271-01594-2}}
* Moles, Abraham (nouvelle édition 1977). ''Psychologie du Kitsch: L'art du Bonheur'', Denoël-Gonthier
*''Kitsch and Art''. (1996). Kulka, Tomas, Pennsylvania State Univ Pr . ISBN 0271015942
* Nerdrum, Odd (Editor) (2001). ''On Kitsch''. ]. {{ISBN|82-489-0123-8}}
*''The Unbearable Lightness of Being : A Novel''. (1999). Kundera, Milan, Perennial. ISBN 0060932139
* Olalquiaga, Celeste (2002). ''The Artificial Kingdom: On the Kitsch Experience''. ] {{ISBN|0-8166-4117-X}}
*''On Kitsch''. (2001). Nerdrum, Odd (Editor), Distributed Art Publishers. ISBN 8248901238
* Reimann, Hans (1936). "Das Buch vom Kitsch". ], München.
*''The Artificial Kingdom: On the Kitsch Experience''. (2002). Olalquiaga, Celeste, Univ of Minnesota Pr. ISBN 081664117X
* Richter, Gerd, (1972). ''Kitsch-Lexicon'', ]. {{ISBN|3-570-03148-9}}
*''Kitsch in Sync: A Consumer's Guide to Bad Taste''. (1994). Ward, Peter, Plexus Publishing. ISBN 0859651525
* Ryynänen, Max (2018). "Contemporary Kitsch: The Death of Pseudo Art and the Birth of Everyday Cheesiness (A Postcolonial Inquiry)" in ''Terra Aestheticae'' 1, pp.&nbsp;70–86.
* Scruton, Roger (2009). ''Beauty: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford University Press {{ISBN|0199229759}}
* Scruton, Roger (1983). ''The Aesthetic Understanding: Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture'' {{ISBN|1890318027}}
* Shiner, Larry (2001). "The Invention of Art". ]. {{ISBN|0-226-75342-5}}.
* Thuller, Gabrielle (2006 and 2007). "Kunst und Kitsch. Wie erkenne ich?", {{ISBN|3-7630-2463-8}}. "Kitsch. Balsam für Herz und Seele", {{ISBN|978-3-7630-2493-3}}. (Both on ], Stuttgart.)
* Ward, Peter (1994). ''Kitsch in Sync: A Consumer's Guide to Bad Taste'', ]. {{ISBN|0-85965-152-5}}
*"Kitsch. Texte und Theorien", (2007). ]. {{ISBN|978-3-15-018476-9}}. (Includes classic texts of kitsch criticism from authors like Theodor Adorno, Ferdinand Avenarius, Edward Koelwel, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Hermann Broch, Richard Egenter, etc.).


==External links== ==External links==
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103001119/http://www.artdesigncafe.com/kitsch-1992 |date=3 November 2012 }}. In John Walker's ''Glossary of art, architecture & design since 1945''.
* – essay by Clement Greenberg


{{Aesthetics}}
* groundbreaking essay by Clement Greenberg
{{Authority control}}
* selections from Odd Nerdrum's manifesto
* essay by Roger Scruton
* essay by Sam Binkley
* Examples and definitions of kitsch.

==See also==

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Latest revision as of 23:15, 8 January 2025

Art or other objects that appeal to popular rather than high art tastes

This article is about the art term. For other uses, see Kitsch (disambiguation). "Tacky" redirects here. For other uses, see Adhesive and Tacky (song).
A Friend in Need, a 1903 Dogs Playing Poker painting by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, is a common example of modern kitsch.
Puppy by Jeff Koons (2010) is a self-aware display of kitsch, specifically as a combination of opulence and cuteness.

Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/ KICH; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal taste.

The modern avant-garde traditionally opposed kitsch for its melodramatic tendencies, its superficial relationship with the human condition and its naturalistic standards of beauty. In the first half of the 20th century, kitsch was used in reference to mass-produced, pop-cultural products that lacked the conceptual depth of fine art. However, since the emergence of Pop Art in the 1950s, kitsch has taken on newfound highbrow appeal, often wielded in knowingly ironic, humorous or earnest manners.

To brand visual art as "kitsch" is often still pejorative, though not exclusively. Art deemed kitsch may be enjoyed in an entirely positive and sincere manner. For example, it carries the ability to be quaint or "quirky" without being offensive on the surface, as in the Dogs Playing Poker paintings.

Along with visual art, the quality of kitsch can be used to describe works of music, literature or any other creative medium. Kitsch relates to camp, as they both incorporate irony and extravagance.

History

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2019)
A mass-produced teapot and milk jug set, themed after an old cottage
Examples of kitsch in architecture
Basilica of Licheń in Poland, as an example of kitsch in sacred architecture

As a descriptive term, kitsch originated in the art markets of Munich, Germany in the 1860s and the 1870s, describing cheap, popular, and marketable pictures and sketches. In Das Buch vom Kitsch (The Book of Kitsch), published in 1936, Hans Reimann defined it as a professional expression "born in a painter's studio".

The study of kitsch was done almost exclusively in Germany until the 1970s, with Walter Benjamin being an important scholar in the field.

Kitsch is regarded as a modern phenomenon, coinciding with social changes in recent centuries such as the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, mass production, modern materials and media such as plastics, radio and television, the rise of the middle class and public education—all of which have factored into a perception of oversaturation of art produced for the popular taste.

Analysis

Kitsch in art theory and aesthetics

Modernist writer Hermann Broch argues that the essence of kitsch is imitation: kitsch mimics its immediate predecessor with no regard to ethics—it aims to copy the beautiful, not the good. According to Walter Benjamin, kitsch, unlike art, is a utilitarian object lacking all critical distance between object and observer. According to critic Winfried Menninghaus, Benjamin's stance was that kitsch "offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, without sublimation". In a short essay from 1927, Benjamin observed that an artist who engages in kitschy reproductions of things and ideas from a bygone age deserved to be called a "furnished man" (in the way that someone rents a "furnished apartment" where everything is already supplied).

Kitsch is less about the thing observed than about the observer. According to Roger Scruton, "Kitsch is fake art, expressing fake emotions, whose purpose is to deceive the consumer into thinking he feels something deep and serious."

Tomáš Kulka, in Kitsch and Art, starts from two basic facts that kitsch "has an undeniable mass-appeal" and "considered (by the art-educated elite) bad", and then proposes three essential conditions:

  1. Kitsch depicts a beautiful or highly emotionally charged subject;
  2. The depicted subject is instantly and effortlessly identifiable;
  3. Kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations related to the depicted subject.

Kitsch in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The concept of kitsch is a central motif in Milan Kundera's 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Towards the end of the novel, the book's narrator posits that the act of defecation (and specifically, the shame that surrounds it) poses a metaphysical challenge to the theory of divine creation: "Either/or: either shit is acceptable (in which case don't lock yourself in the bathroom!) or we are created in an unacceptable manner". Thus, in order for us to continue to believe in the essential propriety and rightness of the universe (what the narrator calls "the categorical agreement with being"), we live in a world "in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist". For Kundera's narrator, this is the definition of kitsch: an "aesthetic ideal" which "excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence".

The novel goes on to relate this definition of kitsch to politics, and specifically—given the novel's setting in Prague around the time of the 1968 invasion by the Soviet Union—to communism and totalitarianism. He gives the example of the Communist May Day ceremony, and of the sight of children running on the grass and the feeling this is supposed to provoke. This emphasis on feeling is fundamental to how kitsch operates:

Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.

According to the narrator, kitsch is "the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements"; however, where a society is dominated by a single political movement, the result is "totalitarian kitsch":

When I say "totalitarian," what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously).

Kundera's concept of "totalitarian kitsch" has since been invoked in the study of the art and culture of regimes such as Stalin's Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Kundera's narrator ends up condemning kitsch for its "true function" as an ideological tool under such regimes, calling it "a folding screen set up to curtain off death".

Melancholic kitsch vs. nostalgic kitsch

A souvenir snow globe with an underwater motif

In her 1999 book The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience, cultural historian Celeste Olalquiaga develops a theory of kitsch that situates its emergence as a specifically nineteenth-century phenomenon, relating it to the feelings of loss elicited by a world transformed by science and industry. Focusing on examples such as paperweights, aquariums, mermaids and the Crystal Palace, Olalquiaga uses Benjamin's concept of the "dialectical image" to argue for the utopian potential of "melancholic kitsch", which she differentiates from the more commonly discussed "nostalgic kitsch".

These two types of kitsch correspond to two different forms of memory. Nostalgic kitsch functions through "reminiscence", which "sacrifices the intensity of experience for a conscious or fabricated sense of continuity":

Incapable of tolerating the intensity of the moment, reminiscence selects and consolidates an event's acceptable parts into a memory perceived as complete. This reconstructed experience is frozen as an emblem of itself, becoming a cultural fossil.

In contrast, melancholic kitsch functions through "remembrance", a form of memory that Olalquiaga links to the "souvenir", which attempts "to repossess the experience of intensity and immediacy through an object". While reminiscence translates a remembered event to the realm of the symbolic ("deprived of immediacy in favour of representational meaning"), remembrance is "the memory of the unconscious", which "sacrific the continuity of time for the intensity of the experience". Far from denying death, melancholic kitsch can only function through a recognition of its multiple "deaths" as a fragmentary remembrance that is subsequently commodified and reproduced. It "glorifies the perishable aspect of events, seeking in their partial and decaying memory the confirmation of its own temporal dislocation".

Thus, for Olalquiaga, melancholic kitsch is able to function as a Benjaminian dialectical image: "an object whose decayed state exposes and reflects its utopian possibilities, a remnant constantly reliving its own death, a ruin".

Further usage

Historical fiction

Jewish-American author Art Spiegelman coined the term "Holo-kitsch" to describe mass-market, overly sentimental depictions of the Holocaust from the end of the Cold War onwards, including works inspired by his own graphic novel on the subject, Maus. The term is usually used to criticize works seen as relying on melodrama and mass recognition to commercialize the experiences of Holocaust survivors, such as Life Is Beautiful or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but also includes more positively received works like Polanski's The Pianist.

Reclamation

The Kitsch movement is an international movement of classical painters, founded in 1998 upon a philosophy proposed by Odd Nerdrum, which he clarified in his 2001 book On Kitsch, in cooperation with Jan-Ove Tuv and others incorporating the techniques of the Old Masters with narrative, romanticism, and emotionally charged imagery.

See also

Notable examples
  • Velvet Elvis – Painting of Elvis Presley on velvet
  • Chinese Girl – 1952 painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff
  • Christmas cards – A major type of greeting cardsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
  • Chocolate box art – Term describing idealistic paintings
  • Thomas Kinkade – American painter of popular realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects

References

Informational notes

  1. Despite being a direct borrowing from modern German, kitsch is most often left uncapitalized and without italics (cf. Gestalt, Sonderweg). Pronunciation may also be colloquially realized as /kɪʃ/ KISH.

Citations

  1. "Definition of KITSCH". www.merriam-webster.com.
  2. "Dialectic of Enlightenment - Philosophical Fragments" (PDF). Wayback Machine Internet Archive. 2002. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 June 2017. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  3. Dutton, Denis (2003), "Kitsch", Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t046768, retrieved 22 October 2021
  4. Scruton, Roger (21 February 2014). "A fine line between art and kitsch". Forbes. Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  5. Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity. Kitsch, p. 234.
  6. ^ Menninghaus, Winfried (2009). "On the Vital Significance of 'Kitsch': Walter Benjamin's Politics of 'Bad Taste'". In Andrew Benjamin and Charles Rice (ed.). Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity. re.press. pp. 39–58. ISBN 9780980544091.
  7. Broch, Hermann (2002). "Evil in the Value System of Art". Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age. Six Essays by Hermann Broch. Counterpoint. pp. 13–40. ISBN 9781582431680.
  8. "Walter Benjamin: Dream Kitsch (trans. Edward Viesel) - -". www.edwardviesel.eu. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  9. Eaglestone, Robert (25 May 2017). The Broken Voice: Reading Post-Holocaust Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0191084201.
  10. "A Point of View: The strangely enduring power of kitsch". BBC News. 12 December 2014.
  11. Tomas, Kulka (1996). Kitsch and art. Pennsylvania State Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0271015941. OCLC 837730812.
  12. Higgins, Kathleen Marie; Kulka, Tomas (1998). "Kitsch and Art". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 56 (4). JSTOR: 410. doi:10.2307/432137. ISSN 0021-8529. JSTOR 432137.
  13. Kundera, Milan (1984). The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Harper Perennial. p. 248
  14. ^ Kundera, Milan (1984). The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Harper Perennial. p. 251
  15. Makiya, Kanan (2011). Review: What Is Totalitarian Art? Cultural Kitsch From Stalin to Saddam. Foreign Affairs. 90 (3): 142–148
  16. Kundera, Milan (1984). The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Harper Perennial. p. 253
  17. Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience. Bloomsbury.
  18. Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience. Bloomsbury. pp. 26, 75
  19. Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience. Bloomsbury. p. 292
  20. ^ Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience. Bloomsbury. p. 291
  21. Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience. Bloomsbury. p. 294, 292
  22. Olalquiaga, Celeste (1999). The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience. Bloomsbury. p. 298
  23. Audi, Anthony. "Art Spiegelman: If It Walks Like a Fascist…" Literary Hub, 22 March 2017. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
  24. Bourne, Michael. "Beyond Holokitsch: Spiegelman Goes Meta", The Millions, 22 November 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
  25. Corliss, Richard. "Defiance: Beyond Holo-kitsch", Time, 1 January, 2009. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
  26. E.J. Pettinger Archived 7 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine "The Kitsch Campaign" , 29 December 2004.
  27. Dag Solhjell and Odd Nerdrum. On Kitsch, Kagge Publishing, August 2001, ISBN 8248901238.

Bibliography

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