kitsch · adj — of art and decor: of questionable aesthetic value; excessively sentimental, overdone or vulgar. It carries an Arena rating of 1839, earned across 37 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, kitsch ranks #165 of 17,134 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #812 of 17,143 for Most Malleable Words, #1,313 of 17,148 for Most Incisive Words, #2,350 of 17,149 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
kitsch is pronounced /kɪt͡ʃ/.
Why “kitsch” is a great word
Of art or decor considered to be in poor taste due to excessive sentimentality, garishness, or pretentious imitation. From German *Kitsch*, from dialectal *kitschen* (“to coat, to smear”); the term was popularized by art critics in the 1930s, first attested in English in 1926. Unlike 'avant-garde' (which strains to innovate and disturb) or 'camp' (which winks from inside its own exaggeration), kitsch is an earnest, heartfelt embrace of the synthetic. It is the glazed porcelain kitten with doleful eyes, the chemical perfection of a plastic rose, and the forced, brilliant smile of a ceramic garden gnome—a world where sentiment coats everything with a thick, impermeable varnish, offering the tactile comfort of emotions pre-digested and sold back to us.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From German Kitsch, from dialectal kitschen (“to coat, to smear”); the word and concept were popularized in the 1930s by several critics who contrasted it with avant-garde art.
adj
- Of art and decor: of questionable aesthetic value; excessively sentimental, overdone or vulgar.e.g.“[…] a picture of lemur-eyed children of the sort one sees in the kitscher sort of Italian restaurant […]” — 1989, Graham Greene, Yours etc: Letters to the Press 1945-1989, →ISBN, page 243:
noun
- Art, decorative objects, and other forms of representation of questionable artistic or aesthetic value; a representation that is excessively sentimental, overdone, or vulgar.e.g.“Because it can be turned out mechanically, kitsch has become an integral part of our productive system in a way in which true culture could never be, except accidentally.” — 1939, Clement Greenberg, “Avant Garde and Kitsch”, in The Partisan Review, archived from the original on 13 Oct 2007:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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