Looking over Kinkade’s site, it seems to me that the two could hardly be more different in subject matter. While both are sentimental, Kinkade paints almost nothing but buildings and landscapes, while Rockwell painted mostly people. Rockwell is precise, where Kincade is vague.
Though he is sentimental and sometimes cheesy, I actually rather like Rockwell. There’s a certain sincerity to Rockwell that seems to be lacking in Kincade. I think that he may well be regarded one hundred years from now something like Currier and Ives are today. I can’t see that happening with Kinkade - his paintings are not really evocative of a time or any real place. They are utterly generic.
And I love “Dogs Playing Poker,” in all it’s variants. I would much rather see an exhibition of that than Kinkade.
The work of Kinkade (for whom I actually worked for a week or two back in 2000) strikes me as generic, also. Honestly, to me it’s like the art version of Budweiser: incredibly average so that it attracts average. When I did drink, I thought that Budweiser was lousy beer and preferred the beers with more taste, more body, more soul, if you will. Same thing applies to Kinkade: I like some art, but don’t particularly like Kinkade’s. I can see, though, how many people can like it. As mentioned upthread, art is in the eye of the beholder.
I was specific in what I said was elitist, and it was not expressing an opinion on art. Your opinions on art may be well founded, even true, it was the matter of opinions on the opinions of people you don’t know that I find elitist.
I never saw the name of the artist under discussion, nor even a photo of his art before this thread. I doubt that I will ever see them again. I find them insipid, and uninteresting, as far as I was willing to look. But I have no opinion on the opinions of people who like the art. Not everyone has to be pleased with what pleases me to have valid opinions.
I don’t care for the works of a lot of artists who are quite famous, and very highly regarded. It is taste, quite specifically my taste that determines what I find pleasing in art. I don’t need the approval of anyone on that matter. And I think that people who make that sort of sweeping judgement are elitists.
Thanks trisk, it was really starting to bother me that so many fucking people thought I was defending kincade. I thought I was pretty clear. Its also wierd how this became a referendum (yeah exci I know I probably misspelled it) on kincade and everyone ignored the OP which was a dig at people who like him.
Hee hee hee. Hey, us Canadians are nothing if not generous. We’re gladly sharing Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, and Nickelback with you - why not Trisha, too?
You know, there was a reason I didn’t open that thread in CS. I hadn’t seen the damned episode yet. Thanks for the unboxed spoilers in a Pit thread. :mad:
OK, I am a firm believer that his work is crap, but I do not agree with you as to why. Paintings do not have to be photorealistic to be right. That is one of the wonderful benefits of painting over photography, that you can completely remake reality. If he wants it to be a world of glowing light, that could be great. If he wants his trees to hold up 4.5 tons of snow, that could be fine and maybe even mean something. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. (If you think there is, then I suggest you avoid cubism like the plague.) My problem is that he uses these techniques to create generic crap.
