Thomas Kinkade dead at age 54

[Bringer]

In my opinion, Kinkade's work is not about technique but about what feelings it triggers when people look at it.

[3243]

Kinkade was not one of my favorite painters, though I do like some of his work. And I was certainly disappointed to hear about bad business practices concerning the business side of his artistic enterprise, though that could have been more the fault of some of the people he hired.

Anyway, R.I.P. I hope his loved ones are okay.

[MarkMark]

Wow!! That is a shock. I may not have liked his art but so young and so sudden..Very sad. RIP THomas

[purplestars74]

I was so sad when I heard the news. My parents have a Kinkade at their home as I'm sure many others do. RIP Thomas

[RiJoRi]

I think that he painted a gentle world with no negativity in it. Snowfalls? Sure. But never a blizzard. Would we want to go live there? For a while, then the sweetness would drive us to tears.

But that's just my opinion.

--Rich

[Freesail]

I read this morning that they are now saying that Thomas Kinkade died of a drug overdose.

[Diane Cutter]

Seems it was a unfortunate deadly mix of alcohol and Valium, deemed accidental by the coroner. I can't imagine the devils that were chasing him... both personal and financial.

Diane.

[Horsa]

Not nearly so sordid as "drug overdose" makes it sound. It appears his personal life was in a shambles and he was not nearly as happy as the world he painted.

Like him and his art or not, it is sad to see someone train wreck the way it seems Kinkade had in his last years.

[Viking55803]

Kincaid's fantasy art was primarily focused on an imaginary and nostalgic past - certainly not the kind of art I can appreciate. That being said, I found myself feeling empathy for this man. He chose to turn his art into a commodity, which I believe is fatal to the artistic soul. Art by its nature is anti-materialistic (his art even reflected this sentiment) and the muse does not take kindly to being prostituted. His addiction is proof that he did not get what he needed from his own art, and he was certainly not the first artist to suffer in this way. As we learn more about Mr. Kincaid, I wonder whether or not there was someone else who benefited from his success at the expense of his soul.

[snoball]

Well the first reports said "natural causes". A mix of alcohol and valium just "naturally causes" death.

[Jody Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Viking55803

Kincaid's fantasy art was primarily focused on an imaginary and nostalgic past - certainly not the kind of art I can appreciate. That being said, I found myself feeling empathy for this man. He chose to turn his art into a commodity, which I believe is fatal to the artistic soul. Art by its nature is anti-materialistic (his art even reflected this sentiment) and the muse does not take kindly to being prostituted. His addiction is proof that he did not get what he needed from his own art, and he was certainly not the first artist to suffer in this way. As we learn more about Mr. Kincaid, I wonder whether or not there was someone else who benefited from his success at the expense of his soul.

My sentiment toward Thomas Kinkade is like Pound's toward Whitman: I have detested him long enough. He may have some value. We may be stuck in the prism of our age and unable to see the value in his work. It happens sometimes: people paint or write in an outdated or seemingly sentimental style only to have future generations discover something of value in their work. Think Spenser, Fabriano and Bach, to name a few: all expressed themselves in styles that seemed outdated at the time, so the originality was sort of cloaked, imperceptible in their lifetimes. They actually were seen as throwbacks, the opposite of innovators, stale. Like if someone wrote a 50s rock song today that sounded nearly 99% like something Elvis or The Platters would do, but 100 years from now, there is something perceived that we could not see but which set it apart not only from 50s music, but from the current music movements and forms of today.

I would like this to be the case with Kinkade. I do no think it is, but I would like it to be: in 100 years, with fresh eyes people see value that we just cannot see since we are too myopic. It is very unlikely, but entirely possible.
He wouldn't be the first eventually-recognized-as-great artist who was misunderstood by the art world and panned by critics during his lifetime.

I know. Longwinded. Sorry! I cant say I like his stuff at all. I dont. It makes me feel sick, I sadly admit. But, the more I misunderstand him and the more that 50 million art college grads shout in unison that he is a hack, the more it is possible that he was different, a rebel, an outsider in the truest sense.

[opainter]

I remember, years ago, visiting a couple different Kincaid shops and seeing paintings that all, as far as I could tell, depicted the same scene, a little German bungalow on the edge of a forest. Neither realistic or abstract, just something in the kitschy middle. Like what one might expect to find on a flea-bag dollar-store Christmas card. Then several years ago I read in a magazine about some criminal mischief he had gotten himself into, which did not fit the carefully-crafted Kinkaid persona in any way, shape, or form, and I thought to myself: This guy is worse than Howard Hughes (even if he isn't quite as rich!).

I find it interesting how polarizing Mr. Kinkade (spelled it right this time!!) is. There are people out there who wouldn't know an Andy Warhol from a Rubens who would pay lots of money for one of his kitschy landscapes. Artists? They would not want to be seen anywhere near his work. Evidently artistic criticism drove him to drink instead of motivating him to become a better artist (I'm not being unfair now, am I?). There seems to be yet more to this story, however, as his ex-wife has filed a restraining order against his girlfriend to keep her from revealing some embarrassing things about Mr. Kinkade's "private life" that might dispel the aura of innocence by which his paintings supposedly retain their "value."

[Horsa]

He seems to have been human after all.

He knew his market well. It was not the same market as the market for "Fine Arts". Just as the market for fast food burgers and fries is not the market for fine dining.

It is possible that he became "trapped" by his success. It happens. Fill a market niche too well and the market and the fans will not let you move beyond it.