Painter Thomas Kinkade has died at age 54. Kinkade was the extraordinarily popular “artist of light” who managed to turn himself into a franchise, opening up mall stores to sell reproductions of his paintings.
This was the sort of thing he did:
Pleasant enough, but not my cup of tea. Then again, I’m not really into landscape paintings per se, and the small amount of art I do have on my walls tends to come out of the science fiction and fantasy genre (like this Ned Dameron piece for Stephen King’s Dark Tower series). But the main reason I’m bringing up his death here is his position on the fault line of the culture wars, because Kinkade was absolutely despised by bi-coastal liberal urban elites. I can think of few things more unfashionable for a Manhattanite than declaring that they love Thomas Kinkade’s work. Personally I have a hard time thinking of any art work I hate enough to dedicate an entire blog to tearing it down, but Kinkade seemed to bring out the same instinctual, irrational loathing in them that Sarah Palin does.
There are likely several reasons he’s so loathed. Part of it is the fact that he was a technically competent, representational artist who strove to make his paintings pretty in an age which devalues all of those attributes in comparison to “authenticity.” Part of it was his success, his ability to sell signed reproductions of work he touched up with highlights for tens of thousands of dollars that no doubt infuriated starving artists in lofts across Greenwich Village.
But most of all, I think Thomas Kinkade was hated because he was liked by the wrong kinds of people. He was a favorite of the loathsome Lumpenproletariat of flyover country, the people who had the bad taste to work with their hands, live in Suburbia, believe in God and vote Republican. (Kinkade himself was not shy about professing his Christian beliefs, which probably infuriated his critics all the more.)
Here’s a fine example: “Kinkade and the culture that supports him… same thing as Bush. Same thing as Enron. Crooks masquerading as religious men… fool the masses of totally ignorant and self-absorbed Christians… and make millions.”
Many hated Kinkade overtly for having different personal or artistic values than them, but some probably hated him just because everyone else hated him; they hated Kinkade because all their hip friends hated Kinkade in the same way they all read The New York Times and voted for Obama. It’s just what’s expected of them.
Tags: art, culture wars, Thomas Kinkade
Honestly, is there not one thing you conservatives can turn into a persecution complex? Get over yourself.
I’m sorry to hear that he died so young. I never liked his work because it all looked the same. When I saw his work, I never felt like he “believed” anything other than that he knew what would sell at a mall. Still, it’s sad that he’s dead. It’s also sad that you turned his obituary into a partisan hit piece.
Oh, and I live in Gainesville Georgia, not Greenwich Village.
So many words….to spout a horrific lie. Like the previous commenter, do you RWers have to make a whining victimization of EVERYTHING???
He was a crappy artist…but a hell of a marketer. P T. Barnum would have been proud.
Uhhh he was hated because he was a major jerk in life towards fans and associates, scammed money out of gallery owners and on top of that he was a very mediocre artist. The only thing he was good at was that he was a superb marketer.
No, his art sucks. That’s really it. You should check out Dali’s Christ of Saint John on the Cross for real modern religious art that even an Atheist like myself would wait on line for hours to see. Instead of lambasting “liberal elites” for criticizing crappy art, why not lambast middle America for settling for less.
No, he’s derided because he is at best, a fairly competent illustrator, without real artistic merit.
He’s hated because he managed to convince millions of people with limited exposure to, or knowledge of, contemporary art that he was a fine artist. On the one hand, that diminishes the good stuff, when his twaddle is held up as the standard, and on the other, he was able to get people to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for prints worth little more than the frames they came with.
He also lost respect for using his professed Christian faith as a marketing tool, while reportedly engaging in frequent public drunkenness, public urination, and on at least one occasion public groping of a woman’s breasts.
There’s nothing wrong with being a hack artist. But ripping people off sucks. Claiming a faith that your public actions belie sucks. And being proclaimed as a great American artist while being a hack really sucks, from the perspective of those who care about American artists.
I too would agree that the vast majority of Salvador Dali’s work is superior to Thomas Kinkade’s work, and St. John of the Cross is one of his best, though I would probably rate at least two versions of the Persistence of Memory higher. (If you’re ever in London, I do recommend visiting Dali Universe (near the London Eye), which I did in 2005.)
The issue is not the quality of Kinkade’s work in comparison to others, the issue is the amount of white-hot hatred for him and his work among certain corners of the Internet.
If you check out his earlier works, they are incomparably better than his later, mass produced stuff. And nothing in those early works was remotely in conflict with Christianity. Why the guy felt he had to neuter himself creatively to be a Christian I have no idea.
Perhaps there is a white-hot hatred for him among certain corners of the internet, however last I checked corners of the internet were not tangible geographical locations, so it seems pretty far fetched to blame “bi-coastal liberal urban elites”. A good rule for the internet is “if it has any little bit of popularity, there will be a blog that hates it”.
Did you read any of those comments Lawrence? They don’t sound like ‘white hot hatred’, and even that blog you cited doesn’t mention Kinkade other than in its title (at least not on the first page, hipster blogs make me ill). The issue is not JUST the quality, but also a referendum on what kind of man he presented himself as, how he sold his art, and whether or not he had a shred of morality or decency.
But you go on with your righteous self, pinning your ideology on a donkey like Kinkade…
Why would anybody want to hang a Christmas card on their wall year round anyway?
Baloney. I’m non-costal, right-of-center, Christian, and Republican and I absolutely loathed Kinkade’s work and him as a person. The work was, and is, dull, sappy, soporific, cloying, and banal. It is not merely bad, it is offensively bad. Add his absence of artistic gift and his unabashed hucksterism to his shady business reputation and you have a well earned outpouring of bile, politics has nothing to do with it.
@JOE .. well said. They end result? Thomas Kinkade was sadly wanting as both an artist and a human being.
He was just a commercial artist. That’s it. Hundreds of people can do what he did. Very few can create the marketing machine that sold his work though. That is what his accomplishment truly was. Watch the 60 Minutes piece on him from 2001 and draw your own conclusion.
http://www.artofthesouth.com/Thomas_Kinkade/60Minutes_video.php
He thrived on the “One born every minute” theory and will go down in art history as a brilliant marketer with a very plain portfolio (if anyone even remembers him in 40 years).
Personally, I think Mr. Kinkade is laughing in his grave at the critics indulging their orgy of hate. He didn’t care one whit about that art snobs thought of his work. Check out this quote of his: “I think the art world… is a very small pond, and it’s a very inbred pond. They rely on information from an elect elite sect of galleries, primarily in New York.” I think the main reason why the so-called art establishment hates him was a combination of jealousy and elitism. He was a success in his lifetime and some of them will never know success even if they live to be 100. It’s amazing to me how people are being so quick to judge and condemn Mr. Kinkade for what many other people have done **coughcoughANDYWARHOLcoughcough** and as for personal flaws? Name me someone who doesn’t have ’em? Please. Way I see, people need to just leave him alone and go find something better to do. The critics can huff and puff like the bad artist snob wolves they are, but for the true fan, they’ll NEVER blow down the cottage, nor will the light ever go out. I liked his work and I’m not ashamed to say so. I approve this message LOL.
Starving artists in Greenwich village? in 2012? Now that’s funny!
You are absolutely right Steve D, Thom’s earlier work was beautiful and poetic, not contrived or garish. But he overplayed his hand, sold out for quick fame and wealth. He played the Christian angle because it fit his marketing ploy…I found no evidence of a true Christian conversion then nor now. I prefer the then “cheesey” and self consumed artist he was then, because at least he was more authentic as a person and his art reflected that.
I hated his work, nothing else.
If you see through those windows you can see hell, the hell that is inside americas soul. That causes war and misery to the planet.
He shows what they really are, the masks that they wear (nice on the outside).