Glossary of Art, Architecture and Design Since 1945  

"Harold Rosenberg describes Kitsch as the daily art of our time— all those cheap, sentimental, cute artifacts found everywhere in Western industrialised societies—an art form that follows established rules when the genuine modern artist puts into question all rules of art. Clement Greenberg remarks that if the avant garde represents the forefront of art, Kitsch represents the rearguard, or, as another writer expresses it, Kitsch is the mirror image of formalism. Kitsch is a form of art pollution, or pseudo-art, created for mass consumption. It is a commodity among commodities, and its audience and effects are utterly predictable; it is one-dimensional and therefore unable to provide an authentic aesthetic experience.

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Most critics regard Kitsch as an inevitable consequence of the industrial revolution— a mass produced art catering for millions who wish to embellish their environment, but who are philistine in their tastes because they lack formal education and have lost contact with traditional folk culture. Abraham Moles, who has undertaken the most complete analysis to date of the phenomenon of Kitsch , claims that it ..." --Glossary of Art, Architecture and Design Since 1945 (1977) by John Albert Walker