Sunday 8 May 2011

Ok, let's talk about...

Thomas Kinkade.

When I saw his paintings first, I was delighted. Pretty little cottages in fairyland setting with this sundown light washed all over it. Cute. But... after seeing one, you've practically seen all.

I haven't been analyzing why I don't like his work, but I don't, so much so that hearing his company got into trouble made me glad. (Yeah, I know, evil me. They'll be back up again at no time, you'll see. The world is full of people who can't get enough plastic goddesses, crying children and fairytale landscapes.)

Trey Givens have given it a thought or two. I found his article very readable and enjoyable.
My BFF has a good test for whether or not he likes a work of art.  He asks himself, “Is this a world in which I would want to live?”  I like that test and I use it often.
I might want to live in Kinkade's painting... I would not want to live in Vanya Zouravliov's painting :-D I know which one I appreciate more :-D

Also, he's a hypocrite. He's selling these "Christian values" and stuff, but
- he was arrested for drunk driving. There are few things as despicable as that. More than one innocent people have been killed and maimed by drunk drivers, and everyone old enough to drive knows this, so everyone driving drunk is excusing this killing, and could have done the killing themselves. Just because they are lucky not to have any "accidents" personally, doesn't take the responsibility off them.
- he reportedly disturbs other artists' performance. Okay, so you're drunk and you're in a bar drinking more, and you have opinions on the show. Have the decency to leave and go to bed, or show the world that you are a pig.
- he reportedly is not housetrained. I assume he was drunk doing that too, but that's not an excuse. Everyone I know manage to go to toilet when they are drunk, why can't he? Some might need help, but they have the decency to ask for help, and they are not pigs.
- he thinks women are lesser beings created for men's pleasure

What's his excuse? "I was going through a bad period". I'm going through some very bad time right now, and I'm still decent and considerate. And I HAVE ASPERGER'S!!! So - no excuses. You're a pig.

The fact that he has nevertheless created this highly successful and marketable image as a right-wing, highly-jeezicised all-round squeaky clean bloke is probably the greatest example of the mass gullibility of society since Scientology. 
- Little Red Boat
Hmm, You must think you are an artist who in reality sucks. Really sucks to be you huh. Ever sold any of your crap? Probably to pay by the hour hotels who don’t know anything more than paint…
- a comment from an upset fan
Why do they always take other people's opinions personally? There's a lot of things I don't like, and it doesn't mean anything but that I don't like them... but obviously one must be living in the cellar and be a bad at what one's doing in order to dislike things. TK hates Walt Disney... what does that say about him? ;-)

"Kinkade's work, frankly, doesn't convince. The light is wrong, the colors are wrong, the angles are wrong, the depth of focus is wrong -- it doesn't look like anything. The more you look at it, the less real it seems. What kind of flowers are those? What time of year is it? Why is the sky that color when it's supposed to be night? Where is the vanishing point of the cottage?"
- Goth House Parlour
Okay, so let's compare Kinkade's and Turner's moonlight...

Thomas Kinkade: Moonlight Cottage
I wouldn't have guessed it's moonlight, unless it was spelled out to me. I thought it was rainy day.


Turner's Keelmen Heaving Coal by Moonlight.
Now THAT's light! This makes me want to see it in real life, so I knew the colors used... there are so many different versions online. Some are bluer, some yellower, some darker... but even in such a small format you can see it's moonlight. It can't be anything else :-)

Then the evil girl posts this:
Is that dinosaurs in moonlight? And, see, there's the cross Trey was talking about! Painted by Rich Penney. Dang, he should start painting fantasy cottages and goddesses and get rich and famous!

"He is a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci or Monet. There is no one in our generation who can paint like that."
- Karen de la Carriere

Oh, dear... you don't know much about painting, art or moder day painters, do you, Karen?

Painters of blight

I'll end with Simcha Fisher's All you need to know about Thomas Kinkade..

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