When did I ever SAY I liked Kinkade? I stand by my observation: Peter Max’s work is formulaic, and simple (mainly line drawings with filled-in colors). Kinkade (even though he paints the same hackneyed scenes) uses perspective, shading, and true vanishing points. Sure, his stuff is mostly fluff-but he exhibits vastly more sophisticated painting techniques than Max’s one-dimensional drawings.
Hey, it’s a de gustibus non disputandum thing, really, about Max’s own style; but ralph’s puzzlement as to whether it was a real artist can be explained as the result of having had whatever stylings were once “original” in that “school” of artwork be reproduced and imitated and revisited and commercialized over decades until thoroughly flogged into the ground, so it becomes hard to believe for some people that once there were actual creators from whom this style was taken as something new and exciting. This is sometimes done by the artists to themselves, it’s not unknown for authors/artists/performers to, over time, begin repeating themselves and “telephoning it in” and what was once “creative” starts to look trite. Some opinion-makers in the art world saw the Edelmann/Max stoned-coloring-book school as “fresh” and “different”, vis-a-vis traditional illustration, when it first came in. Some others probably felt like ralph even from the beginning. First group got to write the history.
Yes, he is real. And alive.
If it makes you feel any better, he was born Peter Finkelstein.