[AnAmericanMother]

I'm sorry, but I absolutely despise Kinkade. Like I said in a post above, his pictures "go no deeper than the paint." The lighting may be dramatic, but it's not accurate or realistic. By the time you have enough contrast to see that much light from within a house, you have lost the colors outdoors, and you don't lose colors in the same order - the bright ones go first. Go out into a sunset and look at an illuminated house from 100 yards down the road, and you'll see what I mean. Kinkade hasn't LOOKED at what he's painting. Here's a good (or bad) example:

Here's the effect that you REALLY get. "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose." Note how the reds have dropped out, and how dark the shadows are. John Singer Sargent could only paint for 5 minutes a day on this picture, when the light was exactly right.

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.

Here's an example of Kinkade TRYING to paint like Hudson River School:

Now here's the real thing (probably the picture he copied):

The unrealistic lighting and flat perspective of Kinkade are very noticeable.

Sorry for the art lesson . . . but there ARE "good" and "bad" in art, and they CAN be distinguished rationally.

[AnAmericanMother]

Looking over my post, I noticed something else that's wrong with Kinkade's light . . . multiple illumination points. It's very obvious in the Yosemite picture -- you can see from the cloud in the background that the sun is high, over the mountain, and producing typical late-afternoon gold sunlight from behind the cloud. Yet the mountains are illuminated as though in the setting sun, red-orange but fairly high, FROM THE FRONT. And the foreground is illuminated from yet another source, as though there were very low SUNSET light (red and orange) coming from somewhere over the viewer's right shoulder. Unless someone was standing there with a searchlight with a red gel on it . . . (g)

I will bet that Kinkade paints from photographs - MULTIPLE photographs. He's no plein-aire painter, that's for sure.

[Aquamarine]

No matter what anyone thinks of him as a painter Thomas Kincaid paintings are very popular. I know a woman who is VERY frugal with her money that just spent $3000.00 dollars on one of his prints of a white church.
His paintings do make people look at them and they are attractive but there was always something about them that bothered me. The scenes don't look realistic, it's as if he combines an Irish countryside scene with California sunlight or other physical qualities. Maybe I'm a realist but I like to see a scene that is an actual place that I can imagine physially being in...either in my mind or actually being there one day. If he would stick with reality I may even pay $3000.00 for one of his paintings one day...but I doubt it.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

The lighting may be dramatic, but it's not accurate or realistic ... his inconsistent lighting ... the unrealistic lighting ...

That's the whole point of his style. After all, he's known as the "Painter of Light".

He KNOWS he's not painting realistically. He's not trying to.

Good analysis, btw. You're very observant. How many people could pull up an example of what Kincaid is copying? You could write a book.

I read an article recently that said that Kincaid is rapidly falling out of favor. All of the people who like his work have already bought his paintings (or prints). There is nobody left who will buy them.

[CyberAnt]

Excuse me ... since when does "reality" have ANYTHING to do with painting or the perceptions of the artist.

You don't like Kincaid's work - I would suggest it's because he's a Christian, and not because you think his art is unrealistic.

[TomSmedley]

The unrealistic lighting and flat perspective of Kinkade are very noticeable.

Perhaps an accurate reflection of his Mormon (LDS) faith. As another popular LDS artist admitted, "Mormonism is not a transcendent faith." (Orson Scott Card, novelist)

[TomSmedley]

The unrealistic lighting and flat perspective of Kinkade are very noticeable.

Perhaps an accurate reflection of his Mormon (LDS) faith. As another popular LDS artist admitted, "Mormonism is not a transcendent faith." (Orson Scott Card, novelist)