Thomas Kinkade, 1958-2012
Art critic Jerry Saltz comments on the worthless schmaltz of Kinkade's paintings.
The reason the art world doesn't respond to Kinkade is because none — not one — of his ideas about subject-matter, surface, color, composition, touch, scale, form, or skill is remotely original. They're all cliché and already told. This is why Kinkade's pictures strike those in the art world as either prepackaged, ersatz, contrived, or cynical. Unoriginal rote things done in his perfectly conventional, balanced people-pleasing way produced these confected conglomerations of things people wanted to think they wanted to think about, democratic paintings whose meanings are hidden from no one, whose appeal is to not to vex or disturb, to produce doubt or newness.
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4 comments:
I can't fully agree Salts because I believe that art is in the eye of the beholder and if people are buying Kinkade's art because they like it or simply because everyone else is buying them isn't a matter of whether Kinkades' art is great or not its a matter of the social aspect of the whole ordeal. One example is fashion, in my opinion not one piece of clothing that I have seen when watching the fashion weeks runway are worth spending thousands of dollars on but because the people that attend those shows are socialy invalid, they do and it seems to be the same ordeal with Kinkades paintings
(Patricia Reynoso ART9)
I appreciate Thomas Kinkade's work more than 90% of the work on display at M.O.C.A. My appreciation for art pieces is based on various reasons- not just one set standard. For example, I admire works by Dali and Frida for their creativeness and ability to creat worlds never seen before, while others like John Singer Sargent & Rembrant, I greatly admire for their ability to make images look photo realistic. I love the beauty, elegance, picturesque subjects, and colors of Thomas Kinkades paintings.
I find that the art world often critisize artist nowdays if they don't fit this mold of the what a contemporary artist should be. Artist are pressured to create these ultra modern abstract works that further challenge the traditional standards of art, otherwise their works don't matter or are insignificant, but shouldn't art be about what comes naturally to the artist. Otherwise its pretentious crap. Why does it matter if Thomas Kinkade wasn't creating something revolutionary or pioneering the way for a new art movement, he was creating images that he wanted to, with great skill, and to me that qualifies him as a great artist.
-and I would argue that challeging traditional art forms is at that point where its cliche, expected and unoriginal .
Selda Kapci
Art 5
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