Kitsch: Art or Not? | Art Terms | LittleArtTalks

What is Kitsch and how did it become art? Watch to learn more about how kitsch went from the lowest of low art to the eye-grabbing pop art.

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Thanks so much for watching! Here at Little Art Talks, I make free educational videos on art history and all things art related. From ancient Japanese paintings to Duchamp’s readymades, we want to talk about what makes these objects art, and attempt to better understand them. Come join us in the discussion :)

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Images: Wikipedia Commons, Public Domain, Fair Use

[myrmidryad]

It's funny how the meanings of words like this change over time - I've always associated kitsch with tacky but cute stuff, like trash that knows and loves the fact that it's trash, if that makes sense.

[spicyspecial]

I just "LOVE" the blatant slap in the face to Norman Rockwell. Why do art-heads consistently balk at even the hint of him? He was a terrific illustrator/painter and gave us some truly iconic americana during the war and post war era. I find this sad. Please educate me, I'm not being sarcastic, I truly want to know.

[WallyPyneoil]

I've got a small board print picture in a plastic frame of a cartoon kitten looking cutely surprised while being confronted by a laid-back and fearless mouse nibbling at a cheese. I've had it since I was a kid in the 1960s. The image of the mouse, cheese and kitten is pure cartoon, but the print is framed by bold dark brush strokes. I just like it. Art to me.

[hannaabril]

I've been following your videos from long time ago and I still don't get how this channel has such few followers. Keep growing and inspiring. Your content is amazing.
Thanks and greetings,
Hanna.

[ReadHeadPat]

(Refering to what that one critic said) I mean you can't just say people DON'T feel something deep about art regardless of it's sentimentality. Like you can't just decide what people feel.

[sofafaye]

Thank you for the video! This was really helpful

[tinarichardson]

Kitsch goes back to the late 19C. The term was popularised in a German magazine called Kunswart. German reformers used this periodical to educate the public on the dangers of cheap, mass-produced objects which they believed would dilute the taste of middle_class culture.

[glencoco]

I came here after my artwork(s)/style was described as Kitsch from my professor, and I don’t know whether to be offended or not 😂

[emmanuelchaves]

Thaks for the video, it helps me a lot!

[sunck]

Kitsch is also a new art movement started (I believe) by Odd Nerdrum. I don’t know much about it other than it is a movement which rejects modern art and follows classical European styles of painting.

[sebastianmelmoth]

Love kitsch. It's fun. I hate modern artists using "preemptive kitsch" in order to elevate their nonsense to the status of art.

[Zodiezzz]

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.[7] 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".[6] 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"[8] (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.[9] 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."[10]

[jijivishant]

i would also want to know what you think about kitsch and avant-garde

[pogglexiv]

kitsch is not the german word for trash. don't know where you got that from. i'm german and the two most used words for trash are Müll and Abfall.

[armbirdy]

I feel that all art is "real art" no matter if kitsch or not

[Migouelin]

A definition of Kitsch that I appreciate is "made to please". It's not necessarily in bad taste. Indian religious art is a good example of tasteful Kitsch. There is also Kitsch in the second degree. In pop music the B52's are a good example. In Europe "Pierre et Gilles" have done a good job in this "Art".

[marcelobonnet]

Western art needs more Kitsch and less 1960s postmodern culture.. Kitsch stimulates the senses and its great fo the spirit.

[psikochick]

I'm thinking of taking Art History and am doing plenty of research on different genres ahead of time. Though Andy Worhol was a pop artist, what makes his art not kitsch? Or is it?

[SunAndMoon-zcvd]

Now one also has kitsch versus Kitsch art.

[gasparucciox]

is more and more difficult to define what is kitch and what is not, cause'  today  loads of people posts kitch images in social like fb or pinterest etc like paperback books and mags covers, b movies film posters, vintage postcards, relgious cards etc...and they seems  to be "cool" and, kind of "beautiful" ...books label like taschen can release collection of kitck images , among artbooks about raphael, caravaggio or rembrandt....so it's like vintage images has often a sort of "dignity" that  they make them appear "beautiful" and acceptable even from people who have good tastes in art/graphics etc . So it's kind of hard to know what kitch is