Thomas Kinkade's Romantic Landscape

Abstract

It is easy to dismiss the work of contemporary landscape painter Thomas Kinkade, but whether it is good or not, it is telling. This article begins by noting the remarkable lack of critical response to Kinkade’s work, then looks at his marketing techniques, juxtaposes his work with Komar and Melamid’s Most Wanted Painting, and locates the source of his earnestness in his conversion to evangelical Christianity. I analyze the pictorial structure and the meanings of Kinkade’s images by comparing them to some of his artistic sources, especially his hero Norman Rockwell. The common thread that ties together the art that has most influenced Kinkade is a search for relief from the pressures and shortcomings of modern life. In linking Kinkade with past art that he has admired and adapted, including works by the impressionists, Caspar David Friedrich, Thomas Cole, and painters of the American West, I argue that his work is neither naive nor simply kitsch, but rather a heartfelt, sentimentalized variant of Romantic landscape painting that he has managed to make relevant to a large audience. The reason for the stark contrast between popular acclaim and critical disdain for Kinkade’s work is that viewers bring different values and apply different standards with respect to sentimentalism, artistic quality, and the nature and social purpose of art. Finally one runs up against a basic paradox in Kinkade’s enterprise: the images and the artist preach the virtues of a simple lifestyle, while his company’s products in practice encourage consumerism without demanding lifestyle transformation.

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