Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being has made me consider the word kitsch. So I did a little research.
Bulgarian definition: Something tacky or inappropriate. You know, like wearing shorts to a wedding.
Historical kitsch: from the German verb “kitschen” which meant “to scrape up mud from the street” or “to smear”. It appealed to the crass taste of newly monied people who envied and therefore, aimed to imitate cultural habits of the elite, which indicted the customer of kitsch, as much as kitsch itself.
One Brit’s definition: tasteless pseudo-art.
What I thought after reading Unbearable Lightness of Being: Kitsch is the denial of anything negative—the reason the 50s always seem like the decade of shiny, happy people—because to think differently from the great parade passing by is deviation from the norm. It is a charade one must continue.
Communist kitsch described by
Ktisch 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 which makes kitsch, kitsch.
What’s your idea of kitsch?
The Brit’s definition: tasteless pseudo-art is the closest to my understanding of it.
But it is not only in Art, it could be everywhere – in fashion, in design, in the way of someone’s speech.