Kitsch

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"Tacky" redirects here. For the Weird Al song, see Tacky (song).
This article is about the art term. For other uses, see Kitsch (disambiguation).

The Widow, kitsch example of late 19th century popular lithograph of a humorous painting by Frederick
Dielman.

Cottage-shaped tea pot and milk jug

Kitsch (/kt/; loanword from German, also called cheesiness and tackiness) is a low-brow style of
mass-produced art or design using popular orcultural icons. The word was first applied to artwork
that was a response to certain divisions of 19th-century art with aesthetics that favored what later art
critics would consider to be exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama. Hence, 'kitsch art' is closely
associated with 'sentimental art'. Kitsch is also related to the concept of camp, because of its
humorous and ironic nature.
To brand visual art as "kitsch" is generally pejorative, as it implies that the work in question is gaudy,
or that it deserves a solely ornamental and decorative purpose rather than amounting to a work of
true artistic merit. The chocolate box artist Thomas Kinkade (19582012), whose idylliclandscape
scenes were often lampooned by art critics as "maudlin" and "schmaltzy," is considered a leading
example of contemporary kitsch.
The term is sometimes applied to music.
Contents

[hide]

1History

2Uses
o

2.1Art

2.2Music

2.3Popular culture

3See also

4References

5Further reading

6External links

History[edit]
As a descriptive term, kitsch originated in the art markets of Munich in the 1860s and the 1870s,
describing cheap, popular, and marketable pictures and sketches.[1] In Das Buch vom Kitsch (The
Book of Kitsch), Hans Reimann defines it as a professional expression "born in a painter's studio".
The study of kitsch was done almost exclusively in German until the 1970s, with Walter
Benjamin being an important scholar in the field.[2]
Hermann Broch argues that the essence of kitsch is imitation: kitsch mimics its immediate
predecessor with no regard to ethicsit aims to copy the beautiful, not the good. [3] According
to Walter Benjamin, kitsch is, unlike art, a utilitarian object lacking all critical distance between object
and observer; it "offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the
requirement of distance, without sublimation".[2]
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."[4]

Uses[edit]
Art[edit]
The Kitsch Movement is an international movement of classical painters, founded[clarification needed] in 1998
upon a philosophy proposed by Odd Nerdrum[5] and later clarified in his book On Kitsch[6] in
cooperation with Jan-Ove Tuv and others, incorporating the techniques of the Old Masters with
narrative, romanticism, and emotionally charged imagery.
According to Whitney Rugg, "Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post magazine covers epitomize
American World War II-era kitsch..."[7]

Music[edit]

The kitsch aesthetic can also be found in indie music, especially lo-fi which utilizes the aesthetic to
create a product that feels somewhat quirky and unrefined. The aesthetic is commonly used to
separate the indie sound from that of the more refined and well produced sound of mainstream
music.[8]

Popular culture[edit]
Scruton identifies the Barbie doll as an example of kitsch.[4]

See also[edit]

Clich

Lowbrow (art movement)

Museum of Bad Art

Poshlost

Prolefeed

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

1.

Jump up^ Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity. Kitsch, p. 234.

2.

^ Jump up to:a b Menninghaus, Winfried (2009). "On the Vital

Significance of 'Kitsch': Walter Benjamin's Politics of 'Bad Taste'". In
Andrew Benjamin. Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity.
Charles Rice. re.press. pp. 3958. ISBN 9780980544091.

3.

Jump up^ 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. 1340. ISBN 9781582431680.

4.

^ Jump up to:a b Scruton, Roger. "A Point of View: The strangely

enduring power of kitsch", BBC News Magazine, December 12, 2014

5.

Jump up^ E.J. Pettinger [1] "The Kitsch Campaign" [Boise Weekly],
December 29, 2004.

6.

Jump up^ Dag Solhjell and Odd Nerdrum. On Kitsch, Kagge

Publishing, August 2001, ISBN 8248901238.

7.

Jump up^ Rugg, Whitney. "Kitsch", Theories of Media, University of

Chicago

8.

Jump up^ Dolan, Emily (2010). "'...This little ukulele tells the truth':
indie pop and kitsch authenticity". Popular Music 29 (3): 457
469. doi:10.1017/s0261143010000437.

Adorno, Theodor (2001). The Culture Industry. Routledge. ISBN 0415-25380-2

Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten (2008). "Wabi and Kitsch: Two Japanese

Paradigms" in : Canadian Aesthetics Journal 15.

Braungart, Wolfgang (2002). "Kitsch. Faszination und

Herausforderung des Banalen und Trivialen". Max Niemeyer
Verlag. ISBN 3-484-32112-1/0083-4564.

Cheetham, Mark A (2001). "Kant, Art and Art History: moments of

discipline". Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80018-8.

Dorfles, Gillo (1969, translated from the 1968 Italian version, Il

Kitsch). Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste, Universe Books. LCCN 7893950

Elias, Norbert. (1998[1935]) "The Kitsch Style and the Age of

Kitsch," in J. Goudsblom and S. Mennell (eds) The Norbert Elias
Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.

Gelfert, Hans-Dieter (2000). "Was ist Kitsch?". Vandenhoeck &

Ruprecht in Gttingen. ISBN 3-525-34024-9.

Giesz, Ludwig (1971). Phnomenologie des Kitsches. 2. vermehrte

und verbesserte Auflage Mnchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. [Partially
translated into English in Dorfles (1969)]. Reprint (1994):
Ungekrzte Ausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ISBN
3-596-12034-9 / ISBN 978-3-596-12034-5.

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. Beacon Press. ISBN

0-8070-6681-8

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 ber die Entartung der
Kunst". Weltbund-Verlag, Hamburg.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1990). "The Modern System of the Arts" (In
"Renaissance Thought and the Arts"). Princeton University
Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02010-5 (pbk.) / 0-691-07253-1.

Kulka, Tomas (1996). Kitsch and Art. Pennsylvania State University

Press. ISBN 0-271-01594-2

Moles, Abraham (nouvelle dition 1977). Psychologie du Kitsch:

L'art du Bonheur, Denol-Gonthier

Nerdrum, Odd (Editor) (2001). On Kitsch. Distributed Art

Publishers. ISBN 82-489-0123-8

Olalquiaga, Celeste (2002). The Artificial Kingdom: On the Kitsch

Experience. University of Minnesota ISBN 0-8166-4117-X

Reimann, Hans (1936). "Das Buch vom Kitsch". Piper Verlag,

Mnchen.

Richter, Gerd, (1972). Kitsch-Lexicon, Bertelsmann. ISBN 3-57003148-9

Shiner, Larry (2001). "The Invention of Art". University of Chicago

Press. ISBN 0-226-75342-5.

Thuller, Gabrielle (2006 and 2007). "Kunst und Kitsch. Wie erkenne
ich?", ISBN 3-7630-2463-8. "Kitsch. Balsam fr Herz und
Seele", ISBN 978-3-7630-2493-3. (Both on Belser-Verlag,
Stuttgart.)

Ward, Peter (1994). Kitsch in Sync: A Consumer's Guide to Bad

Taste, Plexus Publishing. ISBN 0-85965-152-5

"Kitsch. Texte und Theorien", (2007). Reclam. ISBN 978-3-15018476-9. (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[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Kitsch.

"Kitsch". In John Walker's Glossary of art, architecture & design

since 1945.

Avant-Garde and Kitsch essay by Clement Greenberg

Kitsch and the Modern Predicament essay by Roger Scruton

Why Dictators Love Kitsch by Eric Gibson, The Wall Street Journal,
August 10, 2009
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Aesthetics
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Lawn and garden ornaments

GND: 4163976-5

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