Kitsch
此词之犀利让人汗颜。。。
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that are unoriginal. Kitsch also refers to the types of art that are aesthetically deficient (whether or not being sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative) and that make creative gestures which merely imitate the superficial appearances of art through repeated conventions and formulae. Excessive sentimentality often is associated with the term.
The contemporary definition of kitsch is considered derogatory, denoting works executed to pander to popular demand alone and purely for commercial purposes rather than works created as self-expression by an artist. The term is generally reserved for unsubstantial and gaudy works that are calculated to have popular appeal and are considered pretentious and shallow rather than genuine artistic efforts.
The concept of kitsch is applied to artwork that was a response to the 19th century art with aesthetics that convey exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama, hence, kitsch art is closely associated with sentimental art.
*Relationship to aesthetics debated
There is a philosophical background to kitsch criticism, however, which is largely ignored. A notable exception to the lack of such debate is Gabrielle Thuller, who points to how kitsch criticism is based on Immanuel Kant's philosophy of aesthetics.
Kant describes the direct appeal to the senses as "barbaric". Thuller's point is supported by Mark A. Cheetham, who points out that kitsch "is his Clement Greenberg's barbarism". A source book on texts critical of kitsch underlines this by including excerpts from the writings of Kant and Schiller.
One, thus, has to keep in mind two things: a) Kant's enormous influence on the concept of "fine art" (the focus of Cheetham's book), as it came into being in the mid to late 18th century, and b) how "sentimentality" or "pathos", which are the defining traits of kitsch, do not find room within Kant's "aesthetical indifference".
Kant also identified genius with originality. One could say he implicitly was rejecting kitsch, the presence of sentimentality and the lack of originality being the main accusations against it.
When originality alone is used to determine artistic genius, using it as a single focus may become problematic when the art of some periods is examined. In the Baroque period, for example, a painter was hailed for his ability to imitate other masters, one such imitator being Luca Giordano.
Another influential philosopher writing on fine art was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who emphasized the idea of the artist belonging to the spirit of his time, or zeitgeist.
As an effect of these aesthetics, working with emotional and "unmodern" or "archetypical" motifs was referred to as kitsch from the second half of the 19th century on. Kitsch is thus seen as "false".
As Thomas Kulka writes, "the term kitsch was originally applied exclusively to paintings", but it soon spread to other disciplines, such as music. The term has been applied to painters, such as Ilya Repin,[5] and composers, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whom Hermann Broch refers to as "genialischer kitsch", or "kitsch of genius".
Roda Roda claimed in a 1906 newspaper article to be the only person who knew the true origin of "kitsch," which - according to him - derived from "ver" and "kitt", or putting, pasting, etc. something together wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that are unoriginal. Kitsch also refers to the types of art that are aesthetically deficient (whether or not being sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative) and that make creative gestures which merely imitate the superficial appearances of art through repeated conventions and formulae. Excessive sentimentality often is associated with the term.
The contemporary definition of kitsch is considered derogatory, denoting works executed to pander to popular demand alone and purely for commercial purposes rather than works created as self-expression by an artist. The term is generally reserved for unsubstantial and gaudy works that are calculated to have popular appeal and are considered pretentious and shallow rather than genuine artistic efforts.
The concept of kitsch is applied to artwork that was a response to the 19th century art with aesthetics that convey exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama, hence, kitsch art is closely associated with sentimental art.
*Relationship to aesthetics debated
There is a philosophical background to kitsch criticism, however, which is largely ignored. A notable exception to the lack of such debate is Gabrielle Thuller, who points to how kitsch criticism is based on Immanuel Kant's philosophy of aesthetics.
Kant describes the direct appeal to the senses as "barbaric". Thuller's point is supported by Mark A. Cheetham, who points out that kitsch "is his Clement Greenberg's barbarism". A source book on texts critical of kitsch underlines this by including excerpts from the writings of Kant and Schiller.
One, thus, has to keep in mind two things: a) Kant's enormous influence on the concept of "fine art" (the focus of Cheetham's book), as it came into being in the mid to late 18th century, and b) how "sentimentality" or "pathos", which are the defining traits of kitsch, do not find room within Kant's "aesthetical indifference".
Kant also identified genius with originality. One could say he implicitly was rejecting kitsch, the presence of sentimentality and the lack of originality being the main accusations against it.
When originality alone is used to determine artistic genius, using it as a single focus may become problematic when the art of some periods is examined. In the Baroque period, for example, a painter was hailed for his ability to imitate other masters, one such imitator being Luca Giordano.
Another influential philosopher writing on fine art was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who emphasized the idea of the artist belonging to the spirit of his time, or zeitgeist.
As an effect of these aesthetics, working with emotional and "unmodern" or "archetypical" motifs was referred to as kitsch from the second half of the 19th century on. Kitsch is thus seen as "false".
As Thomas Kulka writes, "the term kitsch was originally applied exclusively to paintings", but it soon spread to other disciplines, such as music. The term has been applied to painters, such as Ilya Repin,[5] and composers, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whom Hermann Broch refers to as "genialischer kitsch", or "kitsch of genius".
Roda Roda claimed in a 1906 newspaper article to be the only person who knew the true origin of "kitsch," which - according to him - derived from "ver" and "kitt", or putting, pasting, etc. something together wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch
