20 Mar 2002

  
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Literary kitsch on the pop culture radar

Gear up. Thomas Kincade (the "artist" responsible for those execrable "paintings of light") has swapped careers and penned a best-seller every bit as sappy and faux-quaint as his paintings.

Kinkade has branched out with "the Thomas Kinkade lifestyle brand," including furniture and this book "Cape Light". Kinkade certainly contributed no more than his name, the 600-odd words of introduction and the preposterous cover painting depicting a stone cottage with lighthouse surrounded, unhelpfully, by trees. "Cape Light is a place," Kinkade assures us, "where people have the time to savor life's simple pleasures" (presumably between shipwrecks).


 
 
johnny_jpeg to: artists, fraud
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Hah! Lisa bought a puzzle about a month ago of a Thomas Kinkade painting. She calls it "Thomas Kinkade: Painter of Crap."

andrew 20 Mar 2002

It is both amazing and pathetic how so many people GUSH uncontrollably over Thomas Kinkade's paintings. Yes, he has a talent for painting colorful gardens and quaint cottages in ethereal (or should I say HUMID?) settings. And most certainly Mr. Kindade has a talent for shameless mass-marketing. But when he claims that his work is more "relevant" than any other living artist's because it sells more, he betrays his lack of knowledge of what art is really about: expression, not market share. Any two reasonably intelligent people could argue about what "good" art is, but if artists only catered to the public taste, nothing new would happen. Kinkade's painting are as pretty as the prettiest Hallmark greeting cards ... but please don't call it "ART."

DaJuan Hayes 18 Jan 2003