He was a commercial artist. Not really that much different than someone who creates art for ads or movie posters, at least in my opinion.
“Artist” is a value-neutral descriptor. Thomas Kincaide was as much of an artist as Leonardo de Vinci.
He was a shitty artist, of course, and apparently a pretty shitty human being, but he was still an artist.
That explains the cheese factor.
Merged duplicate threads.
My sentiments exactly.
OK, I have been looking at some Thomas Kinkaid–I had heard of him, of course, but never thought about him one way or the other. And I am trying to decide *why *I hate his work.
Kinkaid’s work . . . well, it’s “pretty.” Stuff looks like stuff. Some of it kind of resembles those middling 19th-century workman artists. I can see it as a Disney version of Bierstadt or Turner or Hopper. Some of his subjects are not cloying: landscapes and buildings and such. The most critical thing I can think of from an art standpoint if that his colors are too bright and his landscapes too flat–you could say the same about some Gainsborough and some of the 18th-century pastel artists . . .
And I love many illustrators who are looked down upon as being commercial: Leyendecker, Amsel, Erte.
So *why *does Thomas Kinkaid’s work make me want to scratch my own eyes out?
When I think “Painter of Light”, I tend to think more of people like Richter or Vermeer or the previously mentioned Hopper.
Though I do have to say, that Nascar Thunder pic is wonderful in a totally over the top way.
There was a not very famous Victorian artist named Thomas Atkinson Grimshaw whose work I loved; he made great use of light and of pastels in his paintings. Kink can use the same colors and I hate his work.
Part of it is the just “way too over the top” pandering. He is to painting what Paula Deen is to cooking: “Let’s cover this boneless fried pork chop and baste it in mayonnaise, and I like to add a little slice of congealed lard, and some white gravy and dark gravy… now let’s cover the whole thing in doughnut batter and deep fry it! Now that is comfort cookin’!”
I think it’s also because his work is too idealized, and too idealized means “it’s a trap”. You get the sense it’s some sort of Potemkin Village. In fact it’s the plot of fairy tales, children’s novels, horror novels, and horror movies: a place is beautiful, ideal, but something’s off… cue the cannibalism. And I think that’s what it is:
Somehow I know that inside of those pastel lit cottages are horrors that would make Ed Gein say “Screw this place, I’m goin’ home”.
Well, considering most of those cottages look like they’re on fire inside…
I’m glad the foreigners are all showing taste and style.
Typically that just means it probably wasn’t suicide, murder, or an accident.
That makes you a sheety artist. And it was probably better than any of Kinkade’s works.
I did not know him personally.
On his work: Not to my tastes, but not worthy (imho) of an active campaign of shaming those who enjoy it.
I like: Pollock, Van Gogh, Frazetta, DaVinci, my own stuff, bullfighters on black velvet, and others
Don’t want: Hello Kitty, My Little Pony, big eyed people, clowns, glurgy stuff with a “message” and other stuff
since this IS the SDMB, ymmv
Now when I get together with other artists who will we ridicule, deride and bust on? I guess now that Kinkade print I was going to use as toilet paper will cost me a small fortune.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to point out the single most obvious aspect of stating subjective opinion. For a moment there, until your flash of insight, I really did think I was expressing the universal opinion of all mankind.
I’m one of the Kincadeless foreigners and I do know about him and his work. It’s advertised in certain cheap tabloidy magazines, often in collectable sets. I’ve not seen the religious stuff so advertised but there is is clearly a market over here for his cottages on fire and Christmassy stuff.
There’s a whole slew of sentimental pseudo art advertised in the same slots, often featuring babies and cutesie animals. There is another small cottage industry in taking the piss out of the stuff, especially when it’s commemorative and patriotic 
That’s the thing that put me off. Kinkade made me think of the people on art websites - Flickr, DeviantART etc - whose output consists of images of deer, flowers, sunsets and so on, with pretty borders and cute slogans. Hundreds upon hundreds of similar images, presented in a cute way, but industrially spammed to hundreds of blogs and awards and groups and so forth. Like a relentless machine. I always have the feeling that although these people are superficially pleasant, if you push them just slightly there’s a psychotic lunatic under the surface.
I mean, you don’t build a multi-million dollar business empire by being nice. You have to spend a lot of time on the phone shouting at people, arranging things, making deals etc. Insincerity, ultimately. It’s the insincerity.
David Hamilton, that’s who he reminded me of. The same mixture of incredible self-regard, excellent but utterly unadventurous technique… except that David Hamilton probably wasn’t a raging psychopath. NB I’m not suggesting that Thomas Kinkade was a raging psychopath.
Google Books has a mostly readable copy of “Thomas Kinkade: Twenty-Five Years of Light”, which reveals that he seems to have started off pretty good - no artistic vision, but visually striking - and then the chocolate box stuff came in and it just turns into frosted flakes. There’s a shot of him shaking hands with Hilary Clinton, whilst Bill Clinton looks on. What kind of man pays to publish a book that’s full of people saying how great that man is? Would Cary Grant have published such a book? No, he would not. I rest my case.
For the record here in the UK he was just unknown. I’d only heard about him from a passing reference in an old episode of MST3K. His BBC obit is a few paragraphs long:
I live about a mile from the Kinkade Company, and I drove past them this morning to see if there was either (a) a flag at half-mast, or (b) employees doing a happy dance out in the street. Neither was happening; all was quiet.
Missed the editing window. And:
My beef with him is that salespeople talked plenty of gullible older church people out of money by implying that these wonderful original works of art were a great investment and would be worth a fortune someday. My own mom spent way too much money on one.
I know what it is: his landscapes look like someone did a pointillist version of Maxfield Parrish, only instead of using dabs of paint, like Seurat, they used Peeps.
One thing about the subject of this OP, there is certainly a colorful variety of ways to spell his last name.