Thomas Kinkade's death

[jnanian]

good points ...

In the end, even if millions of people buy and like something it can still be schlock. How many people bought and liked the "Velvet Elvis" paintings? If that isn't schlock I don't know what is.

i wish i had a"velvis", maybe a sad clown or two AND velvet dogs painting poker ...
better yet, i wish i had dogs trained to play poker ,,,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkB9OT2XVvA

[Gadfly_71]

good points ...



i wish i had a"velvis", maybe a sad clown or two AND velvet dogs painting poker ...
better yet, i wish i had dogs trained to play poker ,,,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkB9OT2XVvA

Funny you mention clowns. A late family member of mine (a cousin a couple of times removed) was "famous" for his paintings of clowns. I found them terrifying.

[Darkroom317]

Actually, Adams work is much more in the vein of 19th century landscape painting. It could very easily fit into the aesthetic of the sublime resembling the dramatic works of JMW Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. There is great difference between these artists (including Adams), and Thomas Kinkade. Even his nickname "the painter of light" was attributed to Turner long before Kinkade came along.

[jnanian]

Actually, Adams work is much more in the vain of 19th century landscape painting. It could very easily fit into the aesthetic of the sublime resembling the dramatic works of JMW Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. There is great difference between these artists (including Adams), and Thomas Kinkade. Even his nickname "the painter of light" was attributed to Turner long before Kinkade came along.

i'm not talking about the style of photography, but the actual part of making it ...
it doesn't matter to me what school of painting you claim he is able to become part of because of his "sublime landscapes".
some of the greatest copyists were great artists, even the people that fill in the dots in a lichtenstien painting or those who do coloring of
animation cells ... all artists ... but can they fit into a "style" ? ... style means nothing ...

kinkade created on a canvas with brushes and paints,
adams manipulated through technical means film and paper ...

i wouldn't say that kinkade wasn't an artist or that it is a crime to compare one to the other ... kinkade created things from a blank canvas,
adams interpreted his negative ... to me there is a big difference.

its obvious that you don't like kinkade for whatever reasons you have ...
but adams is pretty much the photographic version of kinkade as far as i am concerned ...
commercialized to the core, and even now, almost 30years after his death people are buying
posters of his landsacapes the same way people buy posters of kinkade's paintings ...
it wouldn't surprise me if the same people that buy kinkade's paintings also have posters of ansel adams on a wall in a different room.

[Darkroom317]

Adams certainly knew how to market himself much as Kinkade did, I will not contest this. You said something about Adams posters. Though they do exist online I have yet to see Ansel Adams coffee mugs, puzzles, mousepads and decorative plates in any brick and mortar stores or on the Ansel Adams gallery site. However, I have seen Kinkade on all these things pretty much everywhere that sells home decor. This is why his work can be described as kitsch based on his marketing alone regardless of his style. However, it is no doubt that Adams work has become over commercialized nearly to the extent of Kinkade. Perhaps, if Adams had lived in the 1990s and the 2000s, his story would be very much the same.

[rich815]

A......it is no doubt that Adams work has become over commercialized nearly to the extent of Kinkade.

What?? Kinkade's company was grossing $32M a quarter before it went private again a few years back. Every THREE months. I do not think Ansel Adams work was anywhere near that level nor ever will be.

[Michael W]

kinkade used his imagination and created from scratch
with brushes and paints ...

I don't see much imagination or originality in his paintings. Most of them look like scenes from some Disney film of Snow White, or Hansel and Gretel. Cosy cottages with warm, glowing windows set in a snowy, rural landscape.

[jesterthejedi]

My own .02 here, it is really easy to take a beautiful subject and just copy or reproduce it. Real artistry is taking the ordinary subject and transforming it into a thing of beauty (or any character) then also the transformation of something beautiful and making it ordinary.

There are no professional artists, we are all amateurs, our work is what may be the professional.

[gandolfi]

I'd say he's pretty much unknown outside the USA. I only became aware of him in recent times. It was also quite recently that I read about another very successful business that sells little model houses covered in snow. Both seem to be tapping into the same nostalgic fantasy.

Some of us do know about him.

we are told his story, and are ment to smile... maybe to shake our heads a little...

[jnanian]

I don't see much imagination or originality in his paintings. Most of them look like scenes from some Disney film of Snow White, or Hansel and Gretel. Cosy cottages with warm, glowing windows set in a snowy, rural landscape.

hi michael w

he was a commercial painter.
he knew what his client wanted and gave it to him/her.

dutch masters and 17th century rococo and renaissance painters
painted similar scenes ... but didn't sell millions of them
(i am sure they would have liked to )

i don't really see how any of adams work doesn't fit in that
category, he just reshot o'sullivans work but without the mule and portable darkroom ...

to be honest i don't like kinkade's work much, i find it to be kind of the same
as a curio cabinet filled with hummels ...
i am just arguing for the sake of arguing, sorry ...

but he knew his client ...