Listen, I do not personally enjoy the vast majority of the works of Thomas Kinkade, but the hate for him is really performative and forced... there's a very specific type of person who really NEEDS you to know just how much of an intellectual they are who will jump at any opportunity to tell you that Kinkade was a Bad Artist who made Bad Art that is definitely not Real Art. That he was a greedy conservative christian grifter who made sentimental garish slop meant to be enjoyed by the stupid and poor masses who clearly don't have taste (like me).
While the man himself absolutely seemed like a self-righteous conservative asshole by all accounts.... It's ridiculous to say that his works "don’t count" as Real Art. His silly little paintings of cottages and churches and mountain streams have evoked very strong emotions in both the people who love him and despise him; hope, wonder, nostalgia, patriotism, the joy of god’s beautiful creation, disgust, unease, despair, rage. The ability to induce an emotional reaction in the viewer is often like… the one thing that critics across the spectrum of the art world can agree is the function of “art”. And Kinkade’s absolutely massive portfolio of paintings that have been reprinted one gazillion times and dispersed to the farthest corners of the earth have absolutely succeeded at making many, many people feel something.
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