Kitsch

We used to have this picture here called "ağlayan çocuk" - "the crying child" - that was very popular among truck drivers and long distance bus drivers. A sepia toned portrait of a small sad boy with huge eyes, a downturned mouth and one solitary tear trickling down his cheek. They would stick it somewhere on the back of their vehicle so that you had no choice but to look at it as long as you stayed behind them. Now that I am writing this, I searched to see if I could actually find a picture of a bus or a truck festooned with the picture (which sadly, I couldn't) I have just found out that the "crying child" was not a creation of Turkish society at all, but was painted by an Italian painter named Bruno Amadio and was immensely popular across the world - with truckers and bus drivers!

So at some point, the driver would come swaggering out of his cab - a veritable monument to machismo - moustache flaring, sleeves rolled up to the shoulders with biceps bulging, promptly spit on the kerb, and then ominously repair to the road side tea joint. And all the while in the back window is the "crying child".

So what was it about him that gave him the self confidence to flaunt his sentimentality, and what is it about us effete intellectuals that baulk with such horror at the very mention of "Kitsch", much less prominently make displays of it?

Because that is what "Kitsch" is. It is a flaunting of sentimentality. Here is the definition of it according to the Oxford Dictionary: "Art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality"

This sort of ties in with the thing that I wrote about toys the other day. How all sentiment seems to have been scoured out of them. I hadn't used the term "sentimentality" there, I just came across that while I was searching for the definiton of Kitsch. But essentially that is what I was talking about. So, the issue appears to be bigger than just what has happened with toys, it encompasses something much broader, for which the ugly toys are probably just a preparation.

When you look at art and design throughout the ages, sentiment has always been there. Some noteworthy periods such as the ancient Egyptians notwithstanding (they do not seem to have been a terribly sentimental lot), it was always there. It is there in Iranian miniatures and Chinese watercolors, and Roman sculptures. It is there in Inuit carvings. And of course it is there in Western art starting from the late Gothic period - up until the start of the 20th century. Why did it end? How did that happen?

Now, obviously there are other aspects to Kitsch, such as garishness, over simplification, reductionism, commercialism and quite a bit more. So, I am not really talking about Kitsch per se, even though the post's title is Kitsch. I am talking about sentimentality. Which is a very important component of Kitsch. And then I look at all the stuff that I have been making with text to image, and most of it is quite sentimental. And some of it is Kitsch also. Especially these "Rockabillies" which have brought on this post. The big heads, the big eyes (I will be writing another post about that later btw, this big heads big eyes stuff, taking it to another direction entirely) - these are Kitsch. So?

Old age gives license - although I have to admit that I have not been especially known for giving a hoot about what other people thought of what I did or made in younger years either. But that said, old age really does give licence - I no longer have to worry about a "portfolio" because I am not about to apply anywhere for this or that. I no longer have to worry about generating income from what I make. I have always played, but now I can play full time. All I do is play. Outside of teaching for 6 hours one afternoon - and that will be ending 2 months from now.

There is something very wrong with forsaking sentiment for the sake of good taste. In generating mindsets that are incapable of expressing feeling in what they make - art, design, whatever - for fear of committing a faux pas. Again, the toys. The toys, the toys... Although I did grow up with proper toys, in a home where feelings were expressed freely and encouraged - so great has been the peer pressure that I too have been guilty of this shying away from showing sentiment (especially warm joyful sentiments such as painting big eyed kids having a night out at a gas station) in what I made for most of my life. Not any longer. I am not only going to be a rescuer of toys, from now on I am also going to be a sentimental rescuer of toys. Walking the fine line between Kitsch and sentiment. Which is a risk well worth taking, even if it means that more often than not I will fall into the abyss.

And you know what? I am having a really great time falling into the abyss of Kitsch every then and again. A very big release from a life time of the ill founded prejudices of "good taste".