This article was drafted by Jan Ove Tuv, Shane Young, and Robert Dale Williams in the summer of 2005.  It appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of Culture & Leisure magazine.

 

What is art exactly, and who qualifies as an artist? Millions of words have been written on this topic, and the consensus reached by most is, well, everything is art and everyone can be an artist. However, underlying this broad application of the term art rests an unspoken system of value based mainly on the German word Zeitgeist; a term introduced by German philosopher Hegel.  Zeitgeist means, literally, "spirit of the times."  An artist must move with the times to be accepted; otherwise, his or her work can be deemed inferior, or kitsch. Besides Hegel, it was the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant who laid the foundation for the values of the fine art system as it was defined late in the 18th century. His groundbreaking book The Critique of Judgment -- the hidden bible for art historians of the highest level -- is the origin of the phrase, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  In other words, a work of art is not beautiful unless someone perceives it as such. That being true, then truth would also have it that beauty exists only in the mind, not in the work itself.

 

A need for someone to decipher for us what is and what is not art arose and gave birth and purpose to the art critic. Most critics abide by Zeitgeist, labeling any work not with the times kitsch. The values inherent in this term lay latent in the fine art system, as it was being defined in the 1750s. One hundred years later, those values became known as kitsch. Works that were dramatic and sentimental were ostracized from art. With the disintegration of the old world order of commissions from the church and nobility, certain painters still wanted to cultivate their talents and use them to tell stories. They now had to come up with these stories themselves, however, and were looked upon as outdated ... certainly not with the times.

Historically, then, kitsch was not just a label for bad painting -- it had to do with pathos, and therefore a degree of sincerity, a key word in kitsch. This is opposed to camp, in which a kitsch motif is painted with irony. In reality, the word kitsch designates the sentimental, and a belief in the talent of the individual as opposed to, for instance, the "eye of the beholder."

The reason why figurative painters today are increasingly taking interest in the term is that they feel estranged in the contemporary art scene. Still, for many painters, kitsch isn't even on the radar screen -- they are unaware that the emotional scenes they wish to depict are, in fact, kitsch, but do understand that they may be conceived as overly dramatic or unoriginal in the art scene. The question is: Do artists care? Should they? Many do, and they often defend themselves against derision by trying to be more modern. Kitsch, however, can be a way to liberate energy away from an aversion to modern art and to channel it into creating the painters own work. Striving for longevity, kitsch painters work towards the eternal through their handcraft. As opposed to artists, who cultivate the immediacy of the error, kitsch painters try to hide their faults by reworking a painting until their technical errors are resolved.

For a true kitsch painter, the focus is not whether his or her work is original or modern, but on its handcraft quality and emotional content. Quality is set above originality, and archetypes are embraced. Free from the modern requirement of indifference, both painter and viewer can become absorbed in their emotions. They find a beauty that is not implied, but on the surface before their very eyes.