Kitsch is art or other objects that, generally speaking, appeal to popular rather than "high art" tastes. Such objects are sometimes appreciated in a knowingly ironic or humorous way. The word was first applied to artwork that was a response to certain divisions of 19th-century art with aesthetics that favored what later art critics would consider to be exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama. Hence, "kitsch art" is closely associated with "sentimental art". Kitsch is also related to the concept of camp, because of its humorous and ironic nature.
Clement Greenberg, occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as a very influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century and a Formalist aesthetician. He is best remembered for his association with the art movement Abstract Expressionism and the painter Jackson Pollock.
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting, sculpture, and architecture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which was practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and the art that followed these two movements in the attempt to synthesize both of their styles, and which is best reflected by the paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Thomas Couture, and Hans Makart. In this context it is often called "academism," "academicism," "art pompier" (pejoratively), and "eclecticism," and sometimes linked with "historicism" and "syncretism."
Odd Nerdrum is a Norwegian figurative painter, born in Sweden, and considered to be one of the greatest living figurative painters. His work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year. They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects, portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The figures in Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.
David Park was an American painter and a pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative Movement in painting during the 1950s.
The culture of Norway is closely linked to the country's history and geography. The unique Norwegian farm culture, sustained to this day, has resulted not only from scarce resources and a harsh climate but also from ancient property laws. In the 19th century, it brought about a strong romantic nationalistic movement, which is still visible in the Norwegian language and media. In the 19th century, Norwegian culture blossomed as efforts continued to achieve an independent identity in the areas of literature, art and music. This continues today in the performing arts and as a result of government support for exhibitions, cultural projects and artwork.
The Bay Area Figurative Movement was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who abandoned working in the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism in favor of a return to figuration in painting during the 1950s and onward into the 1960s. Spanning two decades, this art movement is often broken down into three groups, or generations: the First Generation, the Bridge Generation, and the Second Generation.
Classical Realism is an artistic movement in the late-20th and early 21st century in which drawing and painting place a high value upon skill and beauty, combining elements of 19th-century neoclassicism and realism.
Michael Pearce is an English, California-based figurative painter and author.
Jan Valentin Sæther was a Norwegian figurative painter, sculptor and gnostic priest. He was professor of figurative painting at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo between 1996 and 2002.
Tom Moody is a visual artist, critic and blogger based in New York City. He began his career as a painter, using traditional materials, but became sensitive to the chemicals. In the mid-1990s, upon moving to New York, he began working with MS Paintbrush during downtime at a day job and has been using this abandonware since then, despite more sophisticated programs such as Photoshop being widely available. Newer works make use of animated GIF files.
Natalie Radina Holland is a Russian-born contemporary artist, formerly based in Norway and now working in England.
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts also involve aspects of visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art.
Richard T. Scott is an American history painter and writer living and working in the Hudson Valley, New York. His paintings are in the permanent collections of museums in North America and Europe. He was formerly a member of the Artistic Infusion Program, a group of artists and illustrators contracted to design coins and Congressional Medals for the United States Mint.
Kitsch painting is an international movement made up of classical painters, a result of a 24 September 1998 speech and philosophy given by the Norwegian figurative artist, Odd Nerdrum, later clarified in his book On Kitsch with Jan-Ove Tuv and others. The movement incorporates the techniques of the Old Masters with narrative, romanticism, and emotionally charged imagery. The movement defines Kitsch as synonymous with the arts of ancient Rome or the techne of ancient Greece. Kitsch painters embrace kitsch as a positive term not in opposition to "art", but as its own independent superstructure. Kitsch painters assert that Kitsch is not an art movement, but a philosophical movement separate from art. The Kitsch movement has been considered an indirect criticism of the contemporary art world, but according to Nerdrum, this is not the expressed intention.
Kaja Norum is a Norwegian model and figurativist painter. A former student and protégé of painter Odd Nerdrum, Norum is devoted to Nerdrum's philosophy of Kitsch painting, and is a part of The Kitsch Movement spawned by Nerdrum. After the latter relocated to France in 2011, Norum is the primary caretaker of his gallery and his estate.
Dag Hol is a Norwegian figurative painter and graphic artist. He is educated at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts (1980-1984) and has been a student of Gunnar Dietrichson and Odd Nerdrum. Earlier he studied Nordic, French and German language and literature at the University of Oslo. He has since he was 18–19 years old practised yoga and Acem-meditation regularly and this has influenced his artistic and philosophical point of view. He made his debut as an artist with his solo exhibition in 1983 in Oslo.
Jorge Tovar. is a painter, sculptor, cartoonist and Mexican landscape artist.
The Savior of Painting is a 1997 painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. It is also known as Self-Portrait as the Prophet of Painting. It depicts Nerdrum in a golden robe, standing barefoot under the evening sky, with a paintbrush in his right hand and a palette in his left.
Martin Romberg is a Norwegian classical composer. He is one of the most active orchestral composers of his generation in Scandinavia. He is mostly known for his J.R.R Tolkien and fantasy literature inspired orchestral and choral works.
