Thomas Kinkade, the painter whose light-filled cottages surrounded by flowers defined an American idyll, had a life of riches and adoration - and skepticism and contempt. He was a pioneer in mass-producing, promoting, and distributing artwork, bringing him vast wealth. But his openly sentimental images, which evoked Christian themes of home and hearth, and of an American landscape blessed by eternal light, were often derided as manipulative and pandering.

Comments

jazzsongbird

04/11/2012 08:28 AM

A money machine lacking not only in artistic skill but soul, there are a million artists who could duplicate his shallow, robotic style. I'd say he set back art 1000 years but that would be an insult to the great painters of that day. Vincent rolls in his grave.