Apedia

Kitsch Art Characterized Kich Noun Artwork Sentimental Pretentious

Kitsch refers to art or cultural items characterized by sentimental, often pretentious bad taste, or a degraded state of culture.

Kitsch describes art or objects that are considered sentimental, tacky, or in bad taste, or a culture characterized by such sentimentality and vulgarity.

Front kitsch \kich\
Back noun
1. Art or artwork characterized by sentimental, often pretentious bad taste. The mentality in which such art is conceived or appreciated.
2. Culture or civilization in a degraded state of sentimentality and vulgarity.

adjective
Relating to or characterized by kitsch.

[German, probably of dialectal origin.]

"Survivors were naturally eager to forget the grimness, and she suggests that they were helped in this by kitsch war poetry and by heroic military films." - Hearing silence; The Economist (London, UK); Oct 28, 2000.

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