But Is It Art?

I take art seriously, and often have very strong opinions about it. There are artists whose technical skill, taste or vision doesn't match mine but whose work I can still respect and admire in some capacity. And there are a few whom I find so weak, irritating or vapid that I'll admit to expressing some scorn for them in private. But while their work may not feel like it merits being described as art according to my internal art-o-meter, I am willing to be liberal in my acceptance of the use of the term "art."

Multiple times, upon learning that I am an artist, I have had people tell me with big smiles and bright eyes that their favorite artist is Thomas Kinkade, and each time I bite my tongue and agree that his works are, um, quite cheerful. We can agree on that. Kinkade, the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light," is less an artist than a kitsch commercial illustrator with massively impressive marketing skills. He does not provide what I look for in an artistic experience, but he moves others, so when his admirers tell me how much they love him, I do my best to show them respect. I may find his work personally offensive in its soft-focus, Kleenex-box-like style and subject matter, but he touches people with his paintings, and their emotional reactions are real and important to them. Kinkade prompts pleasing visceral reactions in them that bring them joy and comfort. So, much as his work turns my stomach, even it is art.

Essayist Joan Didion wrote, "A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent coziness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire." I must admit to laughing and nodding in agreement when I read those words.

The glowing houses, churches and street lamps in Thomas Kinkade's paintings are so extraordinarily popular because they evoke an instant and comforting emotional reaction in so many people. His imitations of light are meant to bring to mind thoughts and feelings of an idealized old-time American home life: clean, cozy, quaint, old fashioned, oozing charm and warmth. As a nation our taste often runs to the sweet, the peppy, the saccharine, and we admire and appreciate those who serve up our stereotypes in the most sanitized and friendly way. A man who sells reproductions of his paintings in the hundreds of thousands, many touched up with selected highlights by worker bees so that they look more like actual paintings than the cheap copies they are (so they can be sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars each instead of the ten dollars they might be worth), Kinkade understands his market and has grown rich by never underestimating the public’s desire for clichéed and emotionally manipulative imagery. According to Wikipedia, he is estimated to have made $53 million from his art works from 1997 to May 2005 alone. Yikes.

His subject matter, style, technique and execution give me the willies, but his work is art, albeit bad art. Some would disagree with me, saying that merely evoking a cheerful reaction with one’s creations doesn't make one an artist. Art is meant to provoke thought and emotion, to make us ask questions, to inspire discussions, to challenge, to confuse or reward or transform us, some say. Sure, it's meant to do all of that. And Kinkade's work does indeed challenge, provoke and confuse me. But not every piece has to accomplish all of those goals. Art can also exist merely to delight, to embellish, to decorate or to express whatever thought, feeling or impression the artist wishes to convey.

Good art can elevate, or soothe, excite or inspire. A lot of works that I personally revile are still, in my estimation, important art because they successfully innovate, surprise or make me think. Beauty speaks to the soul, and each of us finds beauty in different forms. We seek out things that please our eyes and our hearts. Art does transform, but it can do that through humor or subtlety, elegance, spareness or outrageous joie de vivre. Art can also be kitsch, and sometimes that's a lot of fun. Takashi Murakami's pop-art pieces are terribly popular now, and though my favorites among them look a lot like the vinyl flower power stickers found all over beat-up VW beetles circa 1970, they're fun, fresh and freeing. They're real art.

Art asks questions, but it doesn't need to be in our face and ugly about it; it can also ask us sly and amusing questions. Art provokes, yes: it provokes anger, excitement, disgust, questions or tears. It also provokes laughter or thoughtfulness or merely prods us to stand still and feel. It is not a bad thing to feel comfort or joy or simple pleasure. Schmaltzy art may not be high art, but it is still art. Obvious, twee, soulless wrapping-paper-style paintings and prints may feel like caricatures of landscapes to me, but they bring joy to millions. I look down on an artist's decisions to use his or her technical ability in the service of creating sub-par paintings with trite subjects with no aspirations to be anything more than derivative dreck. But whether I like it or not, it is still art.

Someone like Thomas Kinkade achieves something that many artists of integrity cannot: he manages to evoke strong feelings in many people who view and enjoy his work. Just because those of us with art history degrees may look down on untrained eyes as having inferior taste doesn't mean that the feelings of those without our training aren't real or legitimate. We may denigrate Disney's homogenized, dumbed down and sexist animated fairy tales for blandly pandering to the lowest common denominator, but the fact remains that the technical quality of their work and their theme parks is usually superlative, and their understanding of the needs and desires of their market segment has been remarkably keen for 80 years now. They evoke genuine strong emotion with imagery so powerful that indelible icons come to mind when we think of Disney.

It is upsetting when inferior versions supplant the more elegant, subtle, powerful or beautiful versions in our minds. Disney's Winnie the Pooh animation is nowhere near as gorgeous as Ernest Shepard's original illustrations for A. A. Milne's books are, for example. But Disney's work is still art. It may not be high art, it may not always be good art, but it is valid art, as is Andres Serrano's “Piss Christ” or Robert Mapplethorpe's S&M nudes (or his exquisite flower portraits) or Picasso's “Guernica” or Jeff Koons's ridiculous, goofy and disturbing sculpture of Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles. Even Koons's images of himself having sex with his real-life porn star ex-wife Cicciolina (who was, incidentally, also a member of the Italian parliament) are works of art, though not art I'd want to own. The art world is more complex and ridiculous than we even know. Just like the real world around us.