[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

"The thing that disturbs me the most about Kinkade is his inconsistent lighting, but he also
has trouble with inconsistency in paint handling between the building and the landscape,
with perspective (his view is flat and "scrunched") . . . and I notice that his later paintings
are becoming imitative of a wide variety of artists, from impressionistic to HRS. "

According to a radio show that I listened to , Mr. Kinkade is his own company that has issued stock and has a number of stores throughout the country ( the stock was not doing well). He may originate his own paintings, but he has a process for duplicating and assistants to help with final painting and drying boxes to move the whole process along. (Probably uses Alkyd paint as well.) Any originals that he paints cost the most, paintings he does part of a little less, the assistant finished or processed prints, less... (How else would you fill all the stores? How many gallaries can one artist fill?)

He promotes himself as the "painter of light, " and his paintings' nostalgic appeal to people seeking simpler and more certain times. His painting has its place as greeting cards and calander design productive of nostalgic feeling, but does not communicate the sense and experience of the mysterious, sublime and aweful (old sense) communicated by the earlier American artists that are the subject of this post.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, by golly, that explains the inconsistencies within a single painting, doesn't it? Different artists would certainly account for that! (One guy's assigned to paint the skies, one guy the houses, one guy the flowers, etc.)

There is precedent for a "studio" handling things this way -- for example, it's widely accepted that Leonardo da Vinci as a young student painted subordinate figures and backgrounds for his master Andrea Verrochio. Most notably, the left-hand kneeling angel in this "Baptism of Christ":

But somehow Kinkade doesn't rise to that level . . . ;-)