There has been a little burst of excitement in the news over the death of Thomas Kinkade, at the age of 54.    To my surprise, I found that he was known as a fairly successful American artist.    While I was not particularly familiar with his work, upon poking around the Net a while, I realized that I had seen it here and there.    His specialty was creating scenes of the world in what I would call a “soft” version of the  Soviet Realism school.   His paintings were, mostly,  very detailed, almost photographic renderings of scenes, with a light wash of idyllic light and Impressionistic fuzziness to take the hard edge off them.   I was interested to see that he provided a fair number of the “snowy village” images one sees baked onto coffee mugs flooding the market around Christmas time.    The reports said that he had netted at least $50 million over his career, and, I have to say that is an impressive number for a contemporary artist.   I would be interested to see, though, who his customer base was.   I suspect that it might well have been moderate to large corporations and hotel chains and such, rather than individuals, as a lot of his work product  had that feel to it.   Decorative, and pleasant to look at but not challenging.   

 

        Because of the discussion about Kinkade’s death, that eternal question of “What is Art?” was touched upon in a thread elsewhere.   The question raised was what should Art’s role be in one’s life?   Should it provide pleasant bits of softness, well within one’s comfort zone?   Or should it challenge us – stretching our perceptions, and pushing us OUT of our comfort zone?  Having contemplated this a bit, I have to say that I tend to fall into the latter school of thought.   For me, a true piece of “Art” is one where, when I walk by it, I am brought to a halt, and spend some time staring at it.   It produces an impression and image in my mind that is strong enough that even years later I can close my eyes and I will see it floating in the darkness in front of me.    It is an image that speaks with great emotion and passion about an event, and, so, can become an icon for that aspect of existence.  As an example, there is the painting by Goya, titled “The Third of May 1808” – which commenorates the massacre of random, innocent civilians by the troops of Napoleon.   Another very strong image is Picasso’s famous painting  Guernica  Both of these images evoke the horrors of war, and, remind us of the dangers of allowing the government to have too much power.   While both these deal with the old theme of “Man’s inhumanity to Man”, Art can and does celebrate more positive aspects of Mankind’s sojourn on this pla

net,   As an example, we have George Catlin’s art of the SouthWest.  His paintings of scenes from America’s South West, and the native peoples that lived there, while somewhat primative are often quite evocative, and, capture the energy of the moment as a real thing, not a romanticised version of how we THOUGHT it should be.  

     I would also define many of the flood of images that are coming from NASA’s orbiting telescopes to qualify as “Art”.   I say that,  because, as with this image, one tends to stop, stare in amazement, and consider one’s place in the universe.

     While not created by mankind, the images of nature captured by man, either by camera, or, skill with paint and brush, can give us a striking perspective on mankind’s place in the world

     But, I digress a bit.    To get back to my original thought,  when I consider the long line of artists that have blessed the world with their vision through the years, I have to say that Kinkade, alas, does not speak to me at that level.    He was an illustrator – and produced a flood of excellently drawn images that served a valuable purpose.   However, his work was well within the comfort zone and produced feelings of warm fuzzies rather than an “oh WOW” reaction in me.

Pleasant dreams

Beeman Dave