A New Theory on Kitsch

It seems like "Kitsch" is applied to all the good art. Anything that truly related to a mass audience, anything that clearly established its message, anything that was formed from tradition and craft.

I'd say Michelangelo's David is Kitsch, and every piece of art right up to, and about, the time of the Industrial Revolution.

While Shit is inevitably a part of this world, no one wants to step in it. Nor, does anyone want to smell like it. No one wants to be it. And I think art that intentionally makes Shit its subject matter, that's what it essentially is.

Therefore, I offer a better definition for Kitsch. Kitsch is that which overly emphasizes the banal qualities of life. I see it in everything, from the nihilistic and pluralistic worldview being created, and pressed onto the world. A Golden Toilet Seat, that defames and mocks all the hard work Artists have done and achieved throughout the world, that is not kitsch? But, an idealized form of beauty, or an emphasis on what's good, that is kitsch?

The fact remains, what is called "Kitsch" like Kincaid's work, is good art. It emphasizes the better qualities of human beings, and not the shit. It does get to a point, where authors write so much pessimistic and banal worlds, all of them coalescing around fruitless romances, unhealthy relationships, abuse, narcissism, murder, theft, war... It seems to exclude the very thing Art is... which is beautiful.

Excrement is not kitsch, but a healthy attachment is. 

What is art, if not for the enjoyment and edification of mankind? What is poetry, if there is no poetic justice? As one commentator put it, "Art won't put the thumb  on the scale of justice." Then why even write it? What is art, if Syrinx is raped by Pan, and she doesn't turn into a knoll? What is art, if Hans Christian Andersen's Shadow is not a menace? What is a love story, where the couple dislikes each other? Why praise divorce over marriage? Why praise suffering over pleasure? Why praise self over companionship? Why spoil the joy?

That is what art is, and remains, is the contrast of our worst with our best. It is the mortal combat between the two. The mortal combat between good and evil. The mortal combat between Shadow and Light. And if the light does not prevail? What then? Is it art! No, that is kitsch. If there is an ideal, and that ideal is true... there are those who attain it, and why shouldn't we? There are insufferable pedants who wish every good thing to be reduced to suffering. For, they are Buddhist, and not Christian. The Buddhist revels in the darkness, and blindly strives for his way, while the Christian conquers the dark, and raises to eternal glory.

Art, though, is meant to cause suffering in our modern world. That is what people enjoy. They enjoy Hell, for it interests them more than Heaven. Give them a beautiful seascape, or a peaceful image, or a colorful cottage by the river, and they'll want a Hell, a barren desert, a guttural battle, a burning effigy.

Is this to say that our better instincts never prevail? No... most sensible people do not like this, which comes full circle that the masses are enlightened. For, like Jesus said of the Pharisees being blind, had they been blind, they could see. It is obvious to those not indoctrinated in art, what is truly beautiful. What is truly grotesque. Those unindoctrinated know the difference between good and evil, beauty and ugliness (even that word is ugly and unpoetic), they know what is right.

At the end of the day, the good guy does sometimes lose, but in his loss we draw sympathy to the hero. We do not revel in his misfortune. We do not callously walk the path of the villain, and do what he does. We are not the doorkeeper of the Law, but rather sympathize with the man who sits on the stool. And though our world is very bizarre, and though some of the worst things imaginable happen in this world, our optimism ought to outshine our pessimism. The virtue of beauty, is a virtue that creates.

But, alas, that is the whole of it.  We have Malthusians as elites, who wish to bestow upon the world suffering, so they can enjoy life, and remain unbothered. They wish to bestow upon the lower classes no moral values, no aesthetic truths, nothing good. For if they do so, they gain the world, and the rest of us are just sitting by the wayside, waiting for our turn to die. As, they wish to create no hope, for if there is hope, they cannot eat happily knowing the lessers among them have it.

And that is why Kitsch needs redefined.

Kitsch is not the reworking of older molds, to produce new artforms. Kitsch is not the framing of things in mastery. For, if it is, then no one can truly live off of there art. There is no quality. There is no purity. There is no honor, beauty or truth. For the patron of the arts, arts should be accessible to all. It should be written, and now surpassed. Art should be accessed by a Clerk and Common as well as a Baron or King. It should be for all, for all people's enjoyment. It should not encapsulate human suffering, but rather human triumph.

Michelangelo cast moulds of ancient Greek Busts. He practiced his chisel on those moulds. Some might call that plagiarism. I do not. I call it mastering, so one can then reach beyond. Some might call that Kitsch, to work in Romantic or Neoclassical moulds. It matters because the moulds are there, and haven't been used for many years. They are dusty, but strike the same beautiful press now, that they did back then. Only now, we can sculpt David and Pieta and Moses, having those moulds to work with. We can reach beyond our predecessors and move to something new. Something wholly uncharted, and divine.

Should man reach for the mastery? Ought man reach for the heavens? Like a tower of Babel? Well, art no more is a tower of Babel than a trowel a musical instrument. Some backward, and folksy man might make a Trowel into some noise played in folk art---but then we transcend it, and do what is effectively art. So long as the trowel makes good music.

For, art can be a Tower of Babel, reaching into untapped realms, to bring forth humanity's worst, and then it says, "Look! Look upon the mess, and revel in it! I am covered in fleshy filth, and I do not wish to wash! I smoke my pipe of manure, I go unbathed for my entire life, I eat durian fruit and the neighboring town can smell me from miles away! And I am celebrated, famous, and even the poet knows me!" I do... and I know bathing was your ruin... but let not the rest of us become so filthy.