This is my reaction to Kinkade’s work too. I find them visually disturbing because real world trees and cottages don’t look like that at all. It’s an ‘uncanny valley’ kind of effect – it just feels fake, plastic, distorted, scary. The angles are exaggerated somehow.

It’s not that I dislike ‘cute’ or ‘twee’ or want there to be a shadow – I’m a sucker for kittens, sunsets, and soothing green forests. And it’s certainly not that I’m not nostalgic for older, better times – at some level I am. It’s that Kinkade’s visual universe is a place I really, really don’t want to live, and doesn’t feel home to me.

It feels cluttered and unlivable, ‘posed’ and sculpted rather than laid out naturally. The geometry just feels wrong.

Best wishes,
John

P.S. I revised my chapter on your books, partly based on your suggestions and my dissertation director's. It's almost ready to be published in dissertation form, so let me know if you want me to e-mail you a copy.

Personally, I find them a little boring. The bright sunset landscapes remind me of Lisa Frank with a more precise, adult flair. Yet, at the same time, thinking of my friend, I still have a sort of soft spot in my heart for these paintings. So, in the meantime I will remain half-neutral.

I was further disappointed to find out, courtesy of a TV documentary that his "works" – or at least those that show up in most shoppes – are often the product of nameless assembly-line artists in a Kinkade factory. Kinkade will add a few strokes and a signature, and voila!

Kinkade's popularity here seems to come from a mixture of adept marketing – complete with targeted presentations during well-attended conferences of a few completely original works to various Christian celebrities to hang in their ministry offices and headquarters, and a pervasive desire by many of his buyers to have their art do little more than generate some "warm-fuzzies" as they stare into the fairyland scenes he paints.

It's sad that Kincaide has penetrated the heart of the Cotswalds. It's one thing to buy made-in-China kitsch that's actually reflects a location, but having made-in-America generic kitsch (some of which may come from China too) filling a shoppe that would better be selling the work of local artists seems an unfortunate symptom of the globalization that's slowly erasing the uniqueness of the various corners of our world.

I lived for nineteen years in or around Seattle (justly famous for the quantity of cloudy and rainy days, if not for the total quantity of rain that falls), and one thing about a cloudy day is that there are almost no shadows: the light is so diffuse that it does come from everywhere. You almost have to look underneath cars to find shadows. However, that's because the entire area is already in a shadow.

The other question I would bring up (more out of questioning assumptions and looking for alternative explanations rather than necessarily defending Mr. Kincaid's style): in the new Heaven and new Earth, there will be no darkness, no shadow, right? And if such things look disturbing, perhaps it's because we prefer (and are certainly more used to) darkness with our light. This applies to spiritual matters as well (though we wish it wouldn't), as we're all fallen.

I still love coming to the blog each week, and thank you for continuing it, Dr. Walley!

Boaz, now in Austin, TX

The same pictures with only one or two lights on, while maybe not 'good art' would not be so annoying (maybe).

I don't think there's anything actually wrong with twee paintings – even if they're not to my taste. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, there is a problem when people think they are inherently more Christian or spiritual.