Whose paintings do you prefer?

None of the above.

Big Eyes

I should have included Christian Riese Lassen

Don't forget about me!

At least Bob Ross was teaching people how to be Sunday painters - a relaxing hobby if nothing else, even if people never progressed beyond simplistic, child-like landscapes. He was encouraging and gentle, and wanted folks to paint just for the joy of painting - not to make a masterpiece everytime they sat down at the easel. He seems to have been a genuine, all-around nice guy. Plus, his voice often lulled people to sleep. No sinister ulterior motives here. Kinkade however, was called "Minivan Gogh" for a reason. The proliferation of his puke-worthy frau "art" into every mall, home, and church is unforgivable. He actually started out as a background painter/layout artist with Ralph Bakshi's animation studio back in the early 80s, with "Fire and Ice" being a fine example of his "painter of light" style being put to good use in a fantasy setting. (Peter Cheung who would go on to create Aeon Flux for MTV also did backgrounds for the film.) Pity Kinkade turned into a giant whore for money, even having his "originals" mass-produced in China... Suburban, Christian, Trump-votin, fascist moms sure do think his shit is the absolute last word in contemporary art. Oh well...at least it is representational I guess, and thus - arguably better than the vast majority of abstract expressionism, conceptual, and performance art...

r5, I appreciate your nuanced assessment

This is real life Sophie's choice.

(But I do admit I like Pollock, r5)

No, Kinkaid is not better than the vast majority of abstract expressionism, conceptual, and performance art. Even on the terms of his own representational art he's a bad artist. He's a terrible draughtsman who couldn't get perspective right if his life depended on it. He reuses images from painting to painting within a stifling repertory of stone cottages, footbridges, and lighthouses. His illusion of light is a cheap trick done with yellow paint.

And he pissed on the Winnie the Pooh statue in Disneyland.

Jon McNaughton is truly the twenty-first century Hans Holbein.

I don't really like landscapes so I chose Kinkaid. I think his works are comforting like Disney World. I don't hate them.

While his paintings are what you'd expect to see for sale in a Daytona Beach tourist trap, Christian Riese Lassen makes me nostalgic for my1990s childhood. Remember when his artwork was all over school supplies?

Two relevant MA theses on Kinkade:

Art in the twenty-first century: Thomas Kinkade and the case for kitsch (2008)

Why Not Kinkade? An Evaluation of the Conditions Effecting an Artist's Exclusion from Academic Criticism (2011)

I may look at these later today

I love photo realistic large scale still life.

Thomas Darnell

Wyland (TM) is a really good brand of art.

I think that's too tasteless even for Orange County r15

As awful as Kinkade is, his paintings have a certain hypnotic effect.

As hypnotic as the grease fires in the kitchens of all his twee little cottages.

This may be the first time Vivian Vance is ahead in a DL poll

"The Painter of Light"!? HA!

I’m with some of the other posters. I actually like a lot of Thomas Kinkade’s art. It’s kitschy for sure, but I like it. My big problem with him isn’t even that he marketed his stuff so heavily, it’s that he’s an asshole. Or was.

Gerard van Honthorst is my favorite painter of light r20