Kitsch Quotes

“Kitsch is the inability to admit that shit exists”
― Milan Kundera

“Kitsch 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!”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Kitsch. Can't think of Engl. trans. for this word. A copy that's so proud of how close it comes to the original that it believes there's more worth in this closeness than in originality itself. "It looks like...!" Imposture of feeling over actual emotion; sentimentality over sentiment. Kitsch can also be in the eye: "The sunset looks like a painting!" Because artifice is now the ultimate standard, the original (sunset) has to be turned into a fake (painting), so that the latter may provide the measure of the former's beauty. Kitsch is always a form of inverted Platonism, prizing imitation over archetype. And in every case, it's related to an inflation of aesthetic value, as seen in the worst kind of kitsch: "classy" kitsch. Solemn, ornamental, grand. Ostentatiously, arrogantly announcing its divorce from authenticity.”
― Hernan Diaz, Trust

“Tout est kitsch, si l'on veut. La musique dans son ensemble est kitsch; l'art est kitsch; la littérature elle-même est kitsch. Toute émotion est kitsch, pratiquement par définition; mais toute réflexion aussi, et même dans un sens toute action. La seule chose qui ne soit absolument pas kitsch, c'est le néant.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island

“I will not subscribe to the argument that ornament increases the pleasure of the life of a cultivated person, or the argument which covers itself with the words: “But if the ornament is beautiful! ...” To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in arms of a horserider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration. The man of the fifteenth century would not understand me. But modern people will. The supporter of ornament believes that the urge for simplicity is equivalent to self-denial. No, dear professor from the College of Applied Arts, I am not denying myself! To me, it tastes better this way.”
― Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays

“She knew only too well that the song was a beautiful lie. As soon as kitsch is recognized for the lie it is, it moves into the context of non-kitsch, thus losing its authoritarian power and becoming as touching as any other human weakness. For none among us is superman enough to escape kitsch completely. No matter how we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements. Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“But the people who struggle against what we call totalitarian regimes cannot function with queries and doubts. They, too, need certainties and simple truths to make the multitudes understand, to provoke collective tears.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Kitsch has its source in the categorical agreement with being.

But what is the basis of being? God? Mankind? Struggle? Love? Man? Woman?

Since opinions vary, there are various kitsches: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Communist, Fascist, democratic, feminist, European, American, national, international.

Since the days of the French Revolution, one half of Europe has been referred to as the left, the other half as the right. Yet to define one or the other by means of the theoretical principles it professes is all but impossible. And no wonder: political movements rest not so much on rational attitudes as on the fantasies, images, words, and archetypes that come together to make up this or that political kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“She loved old things. The brown-brick place was a survivor of the 1907 earthquake and fire, and proudly bore a plaque from the historical society. The building had a haunted history- it was the site of a crime of passion- but Tess didn't mind. She'd never been superstitious.
The apartment was filled with items she'd collected through the years, simply because she liked them or was intrigued by them. There was a balance between heirloom and kitsch. The common thread seemed to be that each object had a story, like a pottery jug with a bas-relief love story told in pictures, in which she'd found a note reading, "Long may we run. -Gilbert." Or the antique clock on the living room wall, each of its carved figures modeled after one of the clockmaker's twelve children. She favored the unusual, so long as it appeared to have been treasured by someone, once upon a time. Her mail spilled from an antique box containing a pigeon-racing counter with a brass plate engraved from a father to a son. She hung her huge handbag on a wrought iron finial from a town library that had burned and been rebuilt in a matter of weeks by an entire community.
Other people's treasures captivated her. They always had, steeped in hidden history, bearing the nicks and gouges and fingerprints of previous owners. She'd probably developed the affinity from spending so much of her childhood in her grandmother's antique shop.”
― Susan Wiggs, The Apple Orchard

“When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb Homeric profundity. Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion.”
― Umberto Eco, Travels In Hyperreality

“In the past, bad literature was made with high-flown sentiment; today, it is made with the unconscious.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories IV, 1995-2000

“Kitsch is not seeing something for what it is, but what you think it should be.”
― David Yoon, Frankly in Love

“What Broch understood by kitsch (and who else before him had even looked into the question with the keenness and profundity it demands?) was by no means a simple matter of degeneracy. Nor did he think of the relation between kitsch and true art as comparable to that of superstition to religion in a religious age, or of pseudo-science to science in the modern mass age. Rather, for him kitsch is art, or art at once becomes kitsch as soon as it breaks out of the controlling value system. L'art pour l'art in particular, appearing though it did in aristocratic and haughty guise and furnishing us - as Broch of course knew - with such convincing works of literature, is actually already kitsch, just as in the commercial realm the slogan "Business is business" already contains within itself the dishonesty of the unscrupulous profiteer, and just as in the First World War the obtrusive maxim "War is war" had already transformed the war into mass slaughter.
There are several characteristic elements in this value philosophy of Broch's. It is not only that he defined kitsch as "evil in the value system of art." It is that he saw the criminal element and the element of radical evil as personified in the figure of the aestheticizing literary man (in which category, for instance, he placed Nero and even Hitler), and as one and the same with kitsch. Nor was this because evil revealed itself to the writer understandably first of all in his own "value system." Rather, it was because of his insight into the peculiar character of art and its enormous attraction for man. As he saw it, the real seductiveness of evil, the quality of seduction in the figure of the devil, is primarily an aesthetic phenomenon. Aesthetic in the broadest sense; the businessmen whose credo is "Business is business" and the statesmen who hold with 'War is war" are aestheticizing literati in the "value vacuum." They are aesthetes insofar as they are enchanted by the consonance of their own system, and they become murderers because they are prepared to sacrifice everything to this consonance, this "beautiful" consistency.”
― Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times

“Ali bilo mi je žao boga. On nema živaca i on je kič.”
― Slobodan Novak, Južne misli

“Edebiyatın ne olduğunun anlaşılması, ister istemez 'iyi' ve 'kötü' edebiyat kavramlarına kafa yormamızı da gerektirecektir; bu da bizi pratikte 'seçkin' edebiyat ile 'popüler' edebiyat kavramlarına, giderek estetik duygusunun ve 'zevk'in nitelikleri konusuna ve nihayet, Türkçeye 'çirkin', 'bayağı', 'abartılı', 'sakil', 'kalitesiz', 'tapon' gibi olumsuzluk bildiren sıfatlarla aktarılabilecek 'kitsch'(kiç) kavramına ulaştırır. Bir sanat yapıtının, özel olarak da bir edebiyat eserinin bir bakıma bu 'karşı kavram'a, yani yapıtın 'kitsch'le ilişkisine bağlanabilir.”
― Oğuz Cebeci , Edebi Zevk Yargısı: Yüksek ve Popüler Edebiyat & Kitsch

“Kitsch is a folding screen set up to curtain off death.”
― milan Kundera, The unbearable lightness of being

“Dünya tümel bir kiç yapıtına dönüşürken [Gesamtkitschwerk], geçmiş daha şimdi vuku bulmuş kadar yakınımıza gelmektedir ve 1453'te fethedilen İstanbul bile beş yüz altmış yıldır sanki bir türlü fethedilemiyormuş gibi gâvur gâvur bakmaktadır.”
― Levent Şentürk, Kiç Sözlüğü

“How did the senator know that children meant happiness? Could he see into their souls? What if, the moment they were out of sight, three of them jumped the fourth and began beating him up?

The senator had only one argument in his favor: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.

The feeling induced by kitsch must be a kind the multitudes can share. Kitsch may not, therefore, depend on an unusual situation; it must derive from the basic images people have engraved in their memories: the ungrateful daughter, the neglected father, children running on the grass, the motherland betrayed, first love.

Kitsch 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 that makes kitsch kitsch.

The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“How did the senator know that children meant happiness? Could he see into their souls? What if, the moment they were out of sight, three of them jumped the fourth and began beating him up?

The senator had only one argument in his favor: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.

The feeling induced by kitsch must be a kind the multitudes can share. Kitsch may not, therefore, depend on an unusual situation; it must derive from the basic images people have engraved in their memories: the ungrateful daughter, the neglected father, children running on the grass, the motherland betrayed, first love.

Kitsch 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 that makes kitsch kitsch.

The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.

And no one knows this better than politicians. Whenever a camera is in the offing, they immediately run to the nearest child, lift it in the air, kiss it on the cheek. Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements.

Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.

When I say totalitarian, what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree Be fruitful and multiply.

In this light, we can regard the gulag as a septic tank used by totalitarian kitsch to dispose of its refuse.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it. In fact, that was exactly how Sabina had explained the meaning of her paintings to Tereza: on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth showing through.

But the people who struggle against what we call totalitarian regimes cannot function with queries and doubts. They, too, need certainties and simple truths to make the multitudes understand, to provoke collective tears”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Eu tinha ■■■■■■■ de exemplos como esse, e piores, da ignorância dos interrogadores a respeito de seus presos. O governo devia sonegar-lhes informação básica por razões táticas, então diziam a eles: “O detento a seu cargo está profundamente envolvido em terrorismo e tem informação vital sobre ataques já realizados e futuros; cabe a você conseguir tirar dele tudo o que ele sabe”. Na verdade, dificilmente encontrei um detento que estivesse envolvido em algum crime contra os Estados Unidos.
Assim, você tem interrogadores preparados, instruídos, treinados e incitados contra seus piores inimigos. E tem detentos normalmente capturados e entregues às forças americanas sem nenhum tipo de processo judicial. Depois disso, eles sofreram tratamento pesado e se encontraram encarcerados em outro hemisfério, na baía de GTMO, por um país que se diz guardião dos direitos humanos no mundo todo — mas um país que muitos muçulmanos suspeitam que está conspirando com outras forças do mal para varrer a religião islâmica da face da Terra. No final das contas, não é provável que o ambiente seja um lugar de amor e reconciliação. O ódio aqui é alimentado com fartura.”
― Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Guantánamo Diary: Restored Edition

“It is too simple to say that if you avoid kitsch you avoid empire but it is a good start. It is more accurate to say that while kitsch does not necessarily imply empire it is one of its accompaniments.”
― Murdo MacDonald, Ruskin's Triangle

“Het feit dat tot voor kort het woord stront met ... werd aangeduid had niets te maken met morele overwegingen. U wilt toch niet beweren dat stront immoreel is?! Afkeuring van stront is metafysisch. Ontlasting is het dagelijks bewijs dat men de schepping niet aanvaardt. Het één of het ander: of stront is aanvaardbaar (en dan hoef je de w.c.-deur niet op slot te doen!) of we zijn geschapen op een onaanvaardbare manier.
Hieruit volgt dat het esthetische ideaal van de categorische instemming met het bestaan een wereld is waarin stront ontkend wordt en waarin iedereen zich gedraagt alsof die niet bestaat. Dit esthetische ideaal heet kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Waar het hart spreekt, is het onbehoorlijk dat het verstand iets tegenwerpt. in het rijk van de kitsch heerst de dictatuur van het hart.
Het door kitsch opgeroepen gevoel moet uiteraard dusdanig zijn dat massa's dat kunnen delen. Kitsch kan daarom nooit stoelen op een bijzondere situatie, maa rop basisbeelden die in het geheugen van de mensen zijn gegrift: ondankbare dochter, in de steek gelaten vader, kinderen die over een grasveld rennnen, verraden vaderland, herinnering aan de eerste liefde.
Kitsch wekt vlak achter elkaar twee tranen van ontroering. De eerste traan zegt: Wat mooi, kinderen die over een grasveld rennen!
De tweede traan zegt: Wat mooi om samen met het hele mensdom ontroerd te zijn door kinderen die over een grasveld rennen!
De tweede traan mat kitsch pas tot kitsch.
Broederschap van alle mensen op aarde kan alleen gebaseerd zijn op kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“kitsch is een kamerscherm om de dood aan het oog te onttrekken.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Op het moment dat je in de kitsch de leugen herkent, komt de kitsch binnen de context van de niet-kitsch. Zo verliest die zijn autoritaire macht en ontroert als elke andere menselijke zwakte. Want niemand van ons is zo'n supermens dat hij helemaal aan kitsch kan ontsnappen. Hoezeer we die ook minachten, kitsch behoort tot het menselijk lot.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“I will have no more of books in which various characters tell their dreams; tell, with prodigious extension of memory and ruthless courtesy to details, dreams which, unlike yours and mine, have to do with the plot of the piece.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Portable Dorothy Parker

“Kitsch tells you how nice you are: it offers easy feelings on the cheap. Beauty tells you to stop thinking about yourself, and to wake up to the world of others. It says, look at this, listen to this, study this - for here is something more important than you. Kitsch is a means to cheap emotion; beauty is an end in itself. We reach beauty through setting our interests aside and letting the world dawn on us. There are many ways of doing this, but art is undeniably the most important, since it presents us with the image of human life - our own life and all that life means to us - and asks us to look on it directly, not for what we can take from it but for what we can give to it. Through beauty art cleans the world of our self-obsession”
― Roger Scruton, Confessions of a Heretic

“Kitsch tells you how nice you are: it offers easy feelings on the cheap. Beauty tells you to stop thinking about yourself, and to wake up to the world of others. It says, look at this, listen to this, study this - for here is something more important than you. Kitsch is a means to cheap emotion; beauty is an end in itself. We reach beauty through setting our interests aside and letting the world dawn on us. There are many ways of doing this, but art is undeniably the most important, since it presents us with the image of human life - our own life and all that life means to us - and asks us to look on it directly, not for what we can take from it but for what we can give to it. Through beauty art cleans the world of our self-obsession.”
― Roger Scruton, Confessions of a Heretic