Things people who only like weird bad modern art say. This is about thomas kinkade btw. Modern art consoomer types HATE him with vitriol
These are his paintings. Absolutely beautiful and stunning. These people think its Low Brow.
Just bc u have a degree does not mean u know art… if all art school taught u was that a rothko is somehow more artistically valid than any of these beautiful paintings….. you would easily join scientology.
okay so I had a whole longpost written out about this and I’m not going to rewrite it but uh tldr: you’re missing context
Thomas Kinkade was basically the lovechild of a Marvel CEO and Tumblr’s version of Anish Kapoor. he trademarked his own goddamn name and the phrase “painter of light”, made prints in assembly line fashion, and hard-sold his art in mall storefronts and on tv shopping channels. he exploited his workers and his franchisees, and used Christianity to do it. for gods’ sakes, the man did a line of licensed disney paintings.
just about any working artist today has more to say than thomas kinkade, because they’re making art to say something, not just to make money. your random furry mutual-in-law is a better artist than thomas kinkade, because your random furry mutual-in-law has something they want to express. even if it’s just “i really heckin’ love dog people”- that’s still more personal and from the heart than this shit.
thomas kinkade’s the poster child for everything that’s wrong with how american culture treats art, and whether or not his work is beautiful or technically skilled is beside the point.
So you’re saying he’s the MCU of painters?
Kinkade’s images are pleasant, and nobody can determine what is or is not “Art.” Sometimes what Art says is “I have a commission and bills to pay.”
That said, two things piss me off mightily about Kinkade:
1) He treated his art like nfts before nfts were a thing. He’d run off a gazillion prints, have some wage serf put a single dot of paint in a different place (or a different color) on each, and hike the price because each one was now Unique Collectable Investment Art instead of print 4000 of 10,000.
2) The Painter of Light bullshit was a direct and calculated insult to Maxfield Parrish. I have seen Parrish’s art with my own eyes and it glows. It’s lit from within.
Look
At
This
Kincade got jealous, added a bunch of lit windows, and bullshit himself into trademarking a title that had belonged to an earlier painter.
My illustration instructor in college had a friend who was Kincade’s neighbor. That friend was unable to escape being called “The Next Door Neighbor of Light” for years.
