Definitions Quote by Matei Calinescu

Kitsch of course only comes into existence when we recognize how and why it works.

— John Bayley

The value of kitsch exists in its novelty and in its connotations to more legitimate counterparts.

— Carrie Brownstein

Kitsch is all that the modern world makes that's not modern, which is most of it.

— Mike Curran

Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that…

— Harold Rosenberg

Once kitsch is interpreted ironically, it ceases to be kitsch

— Denis Dutton

Kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence

— Milan Kundera

Kitsch is: a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first; but soon palls upon the taste, and is…

— David Hume

Kitsch is art that follows established rules in a time when all rules in art are put into question by each artist.

— Harold Rosenberg

“Kitsch" is a German word born in the middle of the sentimental nineteenth century, and from German is entered all Western languages. Repeated use,…

— Milan Kundera

A kitsch novel describes the world not as it really is, but as it is hoped and feared to be.

— Hermann Broch

Kitsch evokes a future utopia looking back at a past that is selectively (mis)remembered, thereby helping to stabilize the present toward which kitsch is…

— Theodor Adorno

“Kitsch is much more than a question of style; it's a preference for consolation over truth. Disney's version of reality is not just cleaned…

— Susan Neiman