In an interesting review of Roger Scruton’s new book Beauty, Robert Fulford asks the question, “what’s wrong with kitsch?”
Thomas Kincade: You'll need some crackers with this cheese.
Kitsch refers to that overly sentimental, tacky, populous and unoriginal “art” most aptly embodied in the garden gnome, inflatable furniture and Thomas Kincade paintings. Kitsch is everywhere nowadays. Fulford quotes art critic Harold Rosenberg in saying “Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations.”
People obviously don’t mind it, maybe even enjoy it, so is there a problem with kitsch? Beyond it’s tackiness that is? Following Scruton, Fulford argues that this isn’t just a matter of taste, it’s a moral issue.
Scruton argues, reasonably, that beauty also makes ethical demands on us. Its existence challenges us to “renounce our narcissism and look with reverence on the world.”
Kitsch encourages us to dwell on our own satisfactions and anxieties; it tells us to be pleased with what we have always felt and known. It reaches us at the level where we are easiest to please, a level requiring a minimum of mental effort.
Kitsch therefore encourages narcissism and egoism; beauty, the opposite, it draws us out of ourselves. No wonder kitsch is so popular today, given the modern obsession with self-realization and self-gratification. Kitsch is the perfect art form for what Christopher Lasch has aptly called a “Culture of Narcissism”.
Kitsch ultimately gets in the way of truly human living. As Fulford argues:
The moral effect of kitsch may be obscured by sentiment but it’s there. Kitsch, Scruton correctly points out, is a heartless world. It directs emotion away from its proper target towards sugary stereotypes, permitting us to pay passing tribute to love and sorrow without truly feeling them.
Scruton and Fulford call us to resist kitsch, and turn to beauty as an antidote to our self-obsession. It’s a controversial conclusion, but I think both Scruton and Fulford are getting at something.
Considering the ubiquity of Christian kitsch, (we’ve all recieved the Christmas cards!) we need to take their argument seriously.
Read Robert Fulford’s article here.
To read another review of Scruton’s book, one that disagrees with his argument, click here.
Some Christian kitsch
A Passion for ties
Jesus saves!
If Jesus had been crucified in Vegas!
Walk all over Jesus
The other kids will be so jealous!
love it (as always)
I think this argument is almost correct but not quite. I think kitsch is , clearly, a form of irony. I don’t think it’s lazy or non-exploratory, as suggest above, but fearful. In other words, it’s easier to put beauty in quotation marks, because it offers an easy escape clause if anyone disagrees.
Admitting something is beautiful requires some form of vunerability, and kitsch let’s us point to those things without fully commiting to them. Anyway, I’m not sure if what I just said makes any sense, but it’s sure as hell pretentious. See… irony.
Shamy!!! You are awesome!
I actually nearly wet my pants while reading this! And the pics at the end? What can I say, I’m going out to get a ‘Vegas Jesus’ statue right now!
I think your right, kitsch allows us to avoid commitment to something outside of ourselves, to avoid vulnerability, it is in that sense fearful. But I do still want to maintain that kitsch is a form of moral or existential laziness, a retreat from the necessary human job of risk and commitment.
I agree with David, that kitsch is irony, at least for some people most of the time. I disagree with Andrew, that kitsch is a form of moral or existential laziness. I think it is a natural reflex, a perfectly reasonable place for us to spend time, as a necessary counterpoint to looking outward. Looking out incessantly, or even just feeling that you should be looking out incessantly, is a great way to slowly but surely become a fanatical weirdo. Surely you need both, and a healthy dose of awareness as to what is going on is all you need. Beauty without kitsch wouldn’t be so unsettlingly breathtaking, and kitsch without beauty would be like eating cookie dough on the couch in front of 90210 without the guilt and shame.
I object to pointing with alarm at the fearfulness inherent in kitsch, when 99% of our existence is steeped in, if not utterly crafted and shaped by fear anyway.
Then again, I’d probably need to get a better handle on what you mean by kitsch to understand this better, your images of Christian kitsch are, I think, a little misleading because surely the scope of what you are talking about is much greater.
Just to clarify, maybe I don’t disagree with Andrew, that kitsch is a form of moral or existential laziness, rather I just think that in a certain sense, there is nothing wrong with that.
I like the tie… is that sad?
Yes, on many grounds, theological and aesthetic.
I liked the sandals. It puts a whole new spin on the footprints in the sand motif.
What happens in the last panel of the tie?
http://www.stanleyruiz.com/index.php?/project/anno-domini/