From: Shannon Stoney (shannonstoney@earthlink.net)
Date: 01/05/03-12:32:15 PM Z
I hope this is not too off-topic; maybe it is related to the thread about
technique and imagery. Certainly it touches on some things we've talked
about in the past about contemporary art.
My sister gave me a book for Christmas called Beyond the Garden Gate. It
has paintings in it by Thomas Kinkade, the famous (or infamous) painter who
has had amazing success selling paintings of romantic garden scenes with
thatched cottages and rose arches and glowing windows and the like. He calls
himself the "painter of light." I went in one of his galleries in New
Orleans; they are a chain of galleries with outlets all over the country.
Some of his paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars, yet most
artists and critics would consider them "bad." Indeed my sister gave me
this book as kind of a joke. It also has quotes in it from the Bible and
Homer and other sources about gardens and the beauty of creation, etc.
I looked at this book carefully today, expecting to hate it. But I liked
it! I had to admit that some of the paintings had some good passages. And
he does have some understanding of light and shadow. Kinkade has obviously
looked carefully at Monet and some other impressionist painters. The main
faults I found with it had to do with perspective or some other technical
issue that made the scene look not convincing or real. But then I thought,
Wait, this isn't supposed to be REAL. It's a fantasy. So why quibble about
the perspective.
Then my partner and I talked about why Kinkade can sell these paintings for
such fantastic prices. Partly what he's selling is this fantasy of a rural
paradise, covered with flowers, peace, and beautiful light. People
criticize him for that, saying that the paintings are too pretty or too
sentimental. But, my photographs are also pretty and maybe a bit
sentimental. I go for the romantic light and the flowers and peace too. Of
course, a photograph is always a bit grittier and more "real" looking than a
painting, so maybe any photograph will be saved from being too much of a
pretty fantasy just by virtue of being a photograph. (I remember thinking
when I first saw 19th century photographs that the 19th century was a lot
dirtier and messier than I thought it was, having previously only seen it in
paintings.) But what's wrong with a pretty fantasy? Why don't we revile
Matisse for making pretty fantasies? At what point does a pretty fantasy
cross the line and start to be a Hallmark card? I guess the question is:
how do you know you're not making kitsch? And how afraid should you be of
making some kitsch? Maybe people are so afraid of making some kitsch that
they don't take the risk of edging up to the abyss of kitsch. I think it's
kind of exciting to see how close you can come to that edge without falling
over.
This also raises the question of what is kitsch? Milan Kundera said it was
when you are observing yourself, with some smug satisfaction, having a
pleasant emotion, as when you are watching children playing on the grass and
thinking, Isn't it lovely to be the kind of person who enjoys watching
children playing on the grass? You sort of congratulate yourself. But,
there is a fine line between smugness and just plain gratitude for peace and
prosperity. One is kind of dumb and bad, and the other is a plain and
simple virtue. You shouldn't be so much of an intellectual that you have
contempt for such feelings.
Also Kinkade's paintings cater to an understandable nostalgia and longing in
highly urbanized people for a quieter, slower, rural pace of life. This is
also nothing to be contemptuous about. These paintings are direct
descendents of Constable's paintings, made when the Industrial Revolution
was getting cranked up in England. Constable saw the beloved English
countryside of his childhood disappearing, and he memorialized it in
paintings that are now on biscuit tins and cards, but that doesn't mean
they are bad paintings. Kinkade is not as good a painter as Constable by a
long shot, and maybe his motives are not quite as pure as Constable's, but
people love his paintings for some of the same reasons that they love
Constable: the longing for a rural scene of their childhood or maybe just
their collective unconscious memory.
Then we thought that maybe these paintings are so popular because they are
sort of an antidote to the "abject" painting and photography of the last two
decades. After looking at a lot of Nan Goldin and Joel Peter Witkin and
Francis Bacon, something sweet and pretty is kind of a relief. I realized
that in a way I am sort of banking on that kind of desire myself, for some
alternative to the moody nudes and people shooting up and dirty sheets, not
to mention decapitated heads. Something like a creek with trees hanging
over it, with blurry water from the long exposure. It used to be fairly
normal to like to look at something beautiful and peaceful, until fairly
recently. Our notion of beauty expanded during the 20th century to include
non-representational painting, and abstraction, and even minimalism, but
after that there was no place to go except to the decapitated heads.
Thus we have Thomas Kinkade. I have to admire a person who can make a
living, indeed a very good living, making pictures that people actually want
to buy. Also, I admire somebody who can thumb his nose completely at the
art establishment. I wouldn't want to make a painting exactly like his, but
I might want to make a photograph sort of like that.
--shannon
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