Kitsch: In the Shade of Romanticism

Romanticism is an art movement that rose as a reaction against both the social problems the Industrial Revolution gave rise to in the 18th century and the harsh tone of Classicism. Examples of this movement that deeply affected literature, philosophy, architecture, music and plastic arts in 19th century can be encountered in many different European countries. Though Romanticism cannot be put into certain sharp limits in terms of style and content in art history, some common points felt in virtually all these works of art instantly stand out. Among them, the foremost is dealing with emotion-intensive themes and making use of a comprehensible style/speech that can be easily followed by all segments of society. In this study, the resemblance of these stylistic characteristics to some of the basic characteristics of the Kitsch concept which came into existence in the second half of the 19th century due to the technical facilities of the Industrial Revolution and which is also described as ‘inauthentic/artificial art’ has been included. The main objective of the study is both to highlight the historical and social reasons of the stylistic resemblance between Romantic movement and the Kitsch concept and to emphasize the discrepancy between the above-mentioned concepts. In the study using document analysis method, it has been remarked that Romanticism is an aesthetic category and Kitsch is a socio-cultural one. Furthermore, it has been concluded that Kitsch utilizes the Romantic aesthetics to a large extent in order to address large masses