From German art-world slang of the 1860s, likely from dialect 'kitschen' (to smear, make cheaply) — tasteless art.
Art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.
From German 'Kitsch,' meaning cheap, tasteless, or sentimental art. The word emerged in the Munich art world in the 1860s–1870s, but its exact etymology is disputed. The leading theories connect it to the German dialect verb 'kitschen' (to scrape together, to smear, to make cheaply) or to 'verkitschen' (to sell cheaply, to palm off). Some scholars have suggested a connection to English 'sketch' (via tourists requesting quick, cheap sketches from street artists
The Czech-born novelist Milan Kundera made 'kitsch' a philosophical concept in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' (1984), defining it as 'the absolute denial of shit' — a categorical refusal to acknowledge anything ugly, ambiguous, or uncomfortable about existence. For Kundera, kitsch was not just bad taste but a totalitarian aesthetic: the demand that reality conform to a sentimental ideal.