Kitsch is art so tasteless that it becomes enjoyable. Pure kitsch, a kitsch ornament, kitsch value.
The word carries a whole argument: kitsch is sentimental, mass-produced and emotionally easy, and twentieth-century critics used it as the opposite of serious art. Enjoying kitsch knowingly is a separate pleasure from being taken in by it, which is the difference between kitsch and simply bad. Note kitschy; and that the German word probably comes from a verb meaning to smear.
1nounkitschArt so tasteless that it becomes enjoyable.
“Her flat was full of kitsch, from flamingo lamps to plastic gnomes.”
kitsch is a kind of bad art.
German Kitsch comes from a dialect verb kitschen, to smear or slap together. Critics popularised it in the 1930s as the opposite of avant-garde art.
German
Kitsch
English, today
kitsch
Built from
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA