The Painter of Light Goes Home

Hello friends…

I’m sure by now that most of you have heard about the passing of the gifted artist, Thomas Kinkade.  And I felt compelled to comment here about what he left behind.

For a brief time I was not so taken with Kinkade.  It really didn’t have to do with his life or his art, as much as it had to do with my short lived association with a local Kinkade gallery I was being trained to work in.  The woman who managed the facility didn’t really appreciate that I was being placed in her gallery by the owners, and hence she made it very clear my ‘intrusion’ was not going to be accepted with opened arms. I suspect she didn’t want her commissions threatened by sharing sales with another person (she insinuated this with a couple of comments).

At the time, the whole experience turned me off to gallery work and Kinkade.  But later, after I left the situation, and no longer felt the stings of outrageous animosity, I began to appreciate Thomas Kinkade’s work much more.  I began to see in it what others saw…the light and quietness of Love.

For all of his popularity among the masses, Kinkade was not well liked among the ‘art world’, and it’s been said of him that his work would never be accepted by museums because he wasn’t innovative.   (He was in good company, though, because the impressionists didn’t like William Bougeureau’s realism).  And the fact that Kinkade appealed to the masses by reproducing his work on just about every household item, as well as prints, didn’t cozy him up any more to the avant garde crowd.  But Kinkade felt that mass production made it possible for everyone, in every financial situation, to enjoy beauty.

His body of work appealed to the masses because it portrayed the idealism of serenity and security.  It gave a promise of hope to family and community alike.  And I can see why.  I mean…

who wouldn’t want to come home to or be greeted on a cold winter’s night by this scene.

Or this…

And who couldn’t imagine living here…

or here…

Amongst the abundance of flowers, the mists, the glistening lights and cool shadows, the imagination is free to roam with the promises of hope each painting stirs within.  And isn’t that what art should do?  Shouldn’t it stir the imagination, make a statement, provoke conversation, thought, and emotion?  I think Thomas Kinkade succeeded at all of the above.  And he’s first rate in my book.

Due to recent bizarre behavior, and misfortunes in his personal and financial life, some now say that though Kinkade painted serene, idealistic scenes, his life was anything but…  Well, whose life is completely ideal?  Who hasn’t fell upon rough or thorny patches personally, financially, emotionally, or spiritually at some time in their life?  Perhaps that’s one reason he was drawn to paint the secure and serene, the ideal…perhaps he wanted that in his life.  Perhaps he achieved it for a while.  It was obviously in his heart, because you don’t paint like that without it coming from your heart.

Thomas Kinkade gave the world a little more beauty and light, and I believe that his heavenly Father kept a precious light burning in a window for him.  Perhaps in the window of a lovely cottage similar, yet more magnificent, to those he painted, surrounded by the most beautiful gardens he could ever imagine.  And perhaps, even now, the Painter of Light is sitting in that cottage with Jesus, the true Light, chatting and taking in the ideal Paradise.

Until next time, may happy days abound!

Marianne

The above images are of Thomas Kinkade and his paintings.