Kitsch and Art

Kitsch and Art

Author: Thomas Kulka

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-07-14

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 0271074183

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What is kitsch? What is behind its appeal? More important, what is wrong with kitsch? Though central to our modern and postmodern culture, kitsch has not been seriously and comprehensively analyzed; its aesthetic worthlessness has been generally assumed but seldom explained. Kitsch and Art seeks to give this phenomenon its due by exploring the basis of artistic evaluation and aesthetic value judgments. Tomas Kulka examines kitsch in the visual arts, literature, music, and architecture. To distinguish kitsch from art, Kulka proposes that kitsch depicts instantly identifiable, emotionally charged objects or themes, but that it does not substantially enrich our associations relating to the depicted objects or themes. He then addresses the deceptive nature of kitsch by examining the makeup of its artistic and aesthetic worthlessness. Ultimately Kulka argues that the mass appeal of kitsch cannot be regarded as aesthetic appeal, but that its analysis can illuminate the nature of art appreciation.


The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art

The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art

Author: Joan M. Marter

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 3140

ISBN-13: 0195335791

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Arranged in alphabetical order, these 5 volumes encompass the history of the cultural development of America with over 2300 entries.


Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of Whiteness

Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of Whiteness

Author: Wendy Ryden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-01

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1136630597

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In this volume, Ryden and Marshall bring together the field of composition and rhetoric with critical whiteness studies to show that in our "post race" era whiteness and racism not only survive but actually thrive in higher education. As they examine the effects of racism on contemporary literacy practices and the rhetoric by which white privilege maintains and reproduces itself, Ryden and Marshall consider topics ranging from the emotional investment in whiteness to the role of personal narrative in reconstituting racist identities to critiques of the foundational premises of writing programs steeped in repudiation of despised discourses. Marshall and Ryden alternate chapters to sustain a multi-layered dialogue that traces the rhetorical complexities and contradictions of teaching English and writing in a university setting. Their lived experiences as faculty and administrators serve to underscore the complex code of whiteness even as they push to decode it and demonstrate how their own pedagogical practices are raced and racialized in multiple ways. Collectively, the essays ask instructors and administrators to consider more carefully the pernicious nature of whiteness in their professional activities and how it informs our practices.


An Outline Of 19th Century European Painting

An Outline Of 19th Century European Painting

Author: Lorenz Eitner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-28

Total Pages: 703

ISBN-13: 0429708912

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This one-volume edition contains both text and plates and includes corrections in the text and bibliography made since the books publication in 1987. There are concise monographic chapters on the important artists and movements of the period, with material on each artists life and work, characteristics of style, and the relationship of the artistic movements to historical and intellectual currents of the time. The author covers a wide range of material and his presentation is lucid and perceptive. Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Academics and Salon Painters, and Impressionism are covered, and the following artists are included: David, Gros, Girodet, Grard, Gurin, Prudhon, Goya, Fuseli, Blake, Runge, Friedrich, Turner, Constable, Igres, Gricault, Delacroix, Corot, Rousseau, Daumier, Millet, Courbet, Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, and Czanne.


Aesthetics of the Margins / The Margins of Aesthetics

Aesthetics of the Margins / The Margins of Aesthetics

Author: David Carrier

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2020-04-17

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0271082615

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“Wild Art” refers to work that exists outside the established, rarified world of art galleries and cultural channels. It encompasses uncatalogued, uncommodified art not often recognized as such, from graffiti to performance, self-adornment, and beyond. Picking up from their breakthrough book on the subject, Wild Art, David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro here delve into the ideas driving these forms of art, inquire how it came to be marginalized, and advocate for a definition of “taste,” one in which each expression is acknowledged as being different while deserving equal merit. Arguing that both the “art world” and “wild art” have the same capacity to produce aesthetic joy, Carrier and Pissarro contend that watching skateboarders perform Christ Air, for example, produces the same sublime experience in one audience that another enjoys while taking in a ballet; therefore, both mediums deserve careful reconsideration. In making their case, the two provide a history of the institutionalization of “taste” in Western thought, point to missed opportunities for its democratization in the past, and demonstrate how the recognition and acceptance of “wild art” in the present will radically transform our understanding of contemporary visual art in the future. Provocative and optimistic, Aesthetics of the Margins / The Margins of Aesthetics rejects the concept of “kitsch” and the high/low art binary, ultimately challenging the art world to become a larger and more inclusive place.


Images of Crisis (Routledge Revivals)

Images of Crisis (Routledge Revivals)

Author: George P. Landow

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1317635043

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First published in 1982, Images of Crisis explores the premise that literature and art exploit various images to present culturally prevalent ideas, and thus create their own form of iconology. George Landow shows how the tumultuous history of the past two hundred years has resulted in a plethora of metaphors associated with moments of human crisis. Avalanches and volcanoes emerge as focal images in an aesthetic that concerns itself increasingly with the vulnerability of humanity. However, it is in the transformation of traditional religious images that the ideas of the vacant universe are most dramatically presented. Associated with this central idea are ironic transformations of other images that formerly had been associated with Christianity as paradigms of belief: the journey of Odysseus, the rainbow of the Covenant and Robinson Crusoe. Combining close textual analysis with a theory of literary iconology, this fascinating reissue will be of particular value to students with an interest in literary images, and literary and cultural history.


Jean Béraud, 1849-1935

Jean Béraud, 1849-1935

Author: Patrick Offenstadt

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13:

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As a true city man Jean Beraud tried with his pictures to capture the real vitality of urban life in Paris. He made portraits of elegant society ladies, but also of working-class women, pictures of folk dancing and absinthe drinkers in the bars and cafes.