The kitsch dimension of paleoart

Abstract

Much of the discourse on aesthetic theory can be articulated around an emerging artistic discipline called paleoart. The kitsch phenomenon, which has been extensively discussed in the realm of general art theory, can intrude into areas where aesthetic significance is present. One of these areas is within the framework of paleoart and the artistic reconstructions of the distant past. Although the coordinates of this discipline are highly regulated—relying on other areas of knowledge that converge to reveal the appearance of a lost world—paleoart cannot escape the increasingly widespread loss of the aura of the artwork that Walter Benjamin proclaimed. Paleoart has also not been spared from the ethics and morals of its time, nor from the intrusion of the playful and the lack of original significance as a transfer of scientific knowledge. And it is through this blurry film that kitsch operates to stay. We would then be right to speak of a new term: paleokitsch.