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I was confused to find William-Adolphe Bouguereau listed as a notable example of kitsch. There are articles out there that do claim that some of his works share characteristics similar to kitsch, but there is by no means a wide consensus on the matter, at least from what I have gathered (https://www.artrenewal.org/Article/Title/the-great-bouguereau-debate for example). I think it would be better and safer to instead include somebody like Jeff Koons, whose Banality Series was created with the intent to appear as kitsch. Maybe including Bouguereau somewhere else would be acceptable, but I think including him as a notable example is misleading. Ryzcheese (talk) 20:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agree Bouguereau is not particularly kitsch, Disagree Jeff Koons' works were "created with the intent to appear as kitsch". Many observers consider them kitschy, yes, however the author has always said there's no hidden meaning in his sculptures. In interviews, Jeff Koons systematically refuses the qualifier of "kitsch". He says that's first degree for him. We can mention Koons' artworks as example here, but please be exact about the statement. -- Basile Morin (talk) 00:35, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Basile Morin I hope you won't take offence, there's none intended, but his statue of Michael Jackson is about as kitsch as it gets, whatever he claims. However, I get the distinct impression that what English speakers and German speakers mean by kitsch isn't quite the same thing. Intention carries no weight in judging something as kitsch or not. A prime example is pretty much anything painted on velvet. Search 'painting on velvet art' and you'll get nothing but. Gaudy, trashy, sentimental and generally of dubious taste is my understanding of kitsch. Without wishing to appear like a snob, it usually has little artistic merit beyond being decorative and people who appreciate it as kitsch, including my aunt, Sarah Haffner, a talented painter, generally do so ironically. And of course there's nothing wrong with liking that sort of thing, I just wouldn't call it art. Then again I've heard Edward Hopper called kitsch and I love his paintings (perhaps you can say they're a little sentimental, but they're definitely not gaudy, trashy or bad taste). Each to their own.
But if that statue of Michael Jackson isn't kitsch then I really don't know what is. I found it hideous. I'm sure many didn't and can't stand conceptual art, for instance, not that I'm a particular fan but I do like some of it. But not the banana gaffer tapped to a wall, I thought that was going a bit too far (there was a pretty good cartoon depicting a bunch of bananas in an art gallery, gaffer tapping humans to the wall 🤣: Bananas at an Art GallerySaintIX (talk) 01:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kitsch?
To be honest, after 4 years reflection, I think "kitsch" is like "ugly" or "ridiculous". It highly depends on personal tastes. Many people qualify Koons' works as "kitsch", but it does not mean these people understand the intention. From the definitions found in reliabledictionaries, kitsch usually refers to "popular", "poor art" and objects of "bad quality". -- Basile Morin (talk) 11:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Basile Morin I wouldn't say 'popular' is necessarily kitsch but your other definitions are definitely within its meaning. As a musician, I've found writing a song with popular appeal that also has real quality is one of the hardest things to do in music, although I've never really thought of any music as kitsch. Kitsch really applies to the visual, art and design. As for Koons's work, I wouldn't say intention has much relevance as to whether it's kitsch or not, although I do see how it can change your appreciation and perception. I'd still call it kitsch though, but maybe that's my German background and understanding of the word. SaintIX (talk) 15:27, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Basile Morin I'm coming from the German meaning of kitsch which can best be summed up as poor taste, possibly crass. there's an element of popular appeal, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. I think it's snobbish and at least a bit elitist. Also, as I said, popular doesn't necessarily mean kitsch. van Gogh, whose paintings moved me to tears when I first saw them IRL, Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay are examples that are hugely popular and not in the least bit kitsch, they're beautiful. However, I will grant you that popular appeal does cheapen things, to a degree, and there is an element of that in kitsch. I'd say that's not present in the German interpretation. It's also more than banal, there's definitely something gaudy about it. And sentimental is definitely an element, but so is camp and that's where this conversation started, the difference between kitsch and camp. Again, in my interpretation, camp is an element of kitsch but not vice versa. I still think that creating something that has mass appeal but is also profound is one of the hardest things to do in the arts. I'm very used to the attitude that ‘what were doing is obscure/little understood, so it's brilliant’, I've come across it often, been in bands where that's the mentality and excuse. It's nonsense, most of the time.
I was kind of thinking myself that even Koons is not the best example, so I agree that it might be best just to leave him out altogether. Thanks for the feedback everybody.Ryzcheese (talk) 04:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It would seem that Kitsch takes itself seriously, and camp recognizes itself as parody. Kitsch may offer itself as an allusion to economic success or political orthodoxy; camp is a spoof of such. Kitsch pretends either to some undeniable reality beyond judgment or to esthetic greatness; camp is more of a spoof.Pbrower2a (talk) 16:02, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbrower2a In its original German, the word ‘Kitsch’ describes something gaudy, trashy, sentimental and in deliberate bad taste from the viewer's standpoint, though not necessarily the artist's. It's generally regarded humourously: for instance, my aunt, Sarah Haffner, although a talented and successful painter, was a fond of kitsch and occasional showed me something so awful she couldn't resist buying it, saying, “Isn't it wonderful?”, with a laugh and an amused smile on her face. I hasten to add that her paintings weren't in the least bit kitsch (not that she was obsessive or even a collector; she had about a dozen such items dotted about her flat, e.g. one of those knitted loo-roll covers in the guise of a shepherdess). I may be biased but I loved her paintings & silkscreen prints and found them very beautiful (if you follow the link the article is headed with one of her later self portraits), although I wasn't so fond of her rather austere works of the last five years of her life. They used a very muted palette, often just greys or stab colours and the subjects were featureless buildings that are harshly geometric. Among my favourites of her paintings are two of her three of her earliest that hung in her living room since the 60s: a view of the chestnut tree through her window and two still lifes, one of her cluttered desk and one of one of her book cases. I loved the detail in those. The bookcase in particular had all the detail faithfully reproduced, which might sound dull, but there was just something about it. It was full of personality and delight, joyful and surprisingly expressive for what might superficially seem like a plain and lifeless subject. I don't know what it was about that painting, but I really loved it. On one of the last occasions I saw her, I mentioned that I was a fan of Edward Hopper and she replied that he was one of her favourite painters and had been a big influence (my paternal grandmother was Jewish and fled the Nazis in '38. Consequently my father and she were born in Cambridge, UK in '38 & '40 respectively. they returned to West Berlin in '54 and I was born there in '59. My father moved to London in '69 and we used to visit for three weeks over Christmas & New Year until '76 after which my visits were more sporadic, roughly every five years, with one absence of 15 years)). Sorry, I got a little sidetracked. She died in 2018, a few weeks after her 78ᵗʰ birthday, so please forgive me for indulging my find reflections of her. Somewhere I have a brochure for an exhibition that included photos of the three paintings I mentioned, but I can't find it. When I do I'll see if I can take a picture to show you.
One artist whose works exemplify kitsch is Jeff Koons, particularly those like his statue of Michael Jackson. Whether he takes himself seriously or is just having a laugh I have no idea. I wouldn't call the puppy topiary pictured in this article kitsch, nor most of the other examples. In fact, the only really kitsch painting included is Velvet Elvis in the See Also section under notable examples. There's another painting on velvet that used to be extremely popular in the 70s: Pure kitsch. In fact, if you search for 'painting on velvet art' pretty much all of it is kitsch. Taste is, of course, subjective and I have no intention of founding a Kitsch Police 😉. Rather, I'm suggesting that the humour you find lacking is more down to a misappropriation of the original word's real meaning (my German dictionary, generally very good, is about as unhelpful as you can get. Under the German-English entry for 'Kitsch' you'll find "m -esno pl kitsch"!). Perhaps that's down to the well known ‘fact’ that the Germans don't have a sense of humour (don't get me started on that one)? SaintIX (talk) 00:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Agree Bouguereau is not particularly kitsch, 
Disagree Jeff Koons' works were "created with the intent to appear as kitsch". Many observers consider them kitschy, yes, however the author has always said there's no hidden meaning in his sculptures. In interviews, Jeff Koons systematically refuses the qualifier of "kitsch". He says that's first degree for him. We can mention Koons' artworks as example here, but please be exact about the statement. -- Basile Morin (talk) 00:35, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
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