Artist Thomas Kincaid: Biography, Creativity

How do you feel when you see the work of a real artist? There are many of them, and each viewer has his own. But there is a general surprise. How is this done? Who guided this hand? How is this vision arranged, if he saw what others are passing by? And this surprise gives rise to admiration. In this case, you are surprised by another - do these pictures have an author? Did not they always exist - boxes of chocolates and postcards of the beginning of the century? It turns out, no. Their author, Thomas Kincaid, was our contemporary. After acquaintance with his biography, respect is born: this man knew what he wanted.

Start

He was born in 1958 in the town of Placerville, near Sacramento, in California. Judging by the canonical biography of Kincaid, at the age of 4 he corrected the perspective in the figure of the elder sister, at 11 years he sold his painting for $ 7.5, at 13 - impressed the professional level of drawing teachers at school. From the age of 16 he meets Glenn Wessels, an artist who once taught at the University of Berkeley. On his advice, Thomas Kincaid enters this educational institution.

But, after studying there for two years, he realized that the approach to painting, which was the basis of the Berkeley training program, does not suit him. He said that constant self-deepening, studying the world and searching for a way to express one's own vision of the surrounding world is not for him. As Thomas Kincaid later wrote, he saw the great goal of his artistic talent in enriching the lives of others. Therefore, he moved to the Art Center of the College of Design in Pasadena.

First success

In his life, there were many successful marketing moves. When he traveled the country together with a friend of the college Jim Gurneyem, the idea arose to write a book. What can two students write about, only those who study fine arts? Thomas Kincaid decided to immediately release a textbook for painters, and published in 1982, "Guide for artists to create sketches" was the best-selling edition of the company "Guptill", with which a profitable contract was entered into.

In the studio of Ralph Bakshi, where he and Jim came to work in 1982, a full-length animated film "Fire and Ice" was released, which appeared in a year. Here, Thomas met with the technology and visual techniques adopted in Disney's animation. This helped him to finally determine the product that was supposed to bring him financial well-being. Soon, the artist Thomas Kincaid begins to independently and very actively sell their works.

The trade mark "Artist of Light"

His style is often magnanimously called Impressionism, although he has nothing to do with the expression of color nuances, the richness of the shades of feelings born of a close look. In Kincaid everything is extremely simple and unambiguous, because his goal, as he always said, is an art that everyone understands. And the attribution to the Impressionists comes from his official site - an important element of information support for the trading strategy.

Impressive, but incorrect for those who understand Kinkadeom as their forerunner luminists of the XIX century. In the landscapes of F... Church (1826-1900), DF Kensett (1816-1872), S. R. Gifford (1823-1880) and others, light is inseparable from the space and air that they are filled with. Just like the great Turner, who was first called "the artist of light." The depth on most of Kinkade's creations is similar to the one that has relief images of thin plastic, obtained by the method of stamping.

But, unlike the unreceptive masters, the past Kincaid prudently registered the phrase Painter of Light - the artist of light - as a trademark, and it was with this prefix that it was officially called, especially when making trading transactions.

Ideal family, ideal Christian

An important factor of commercial success, especially in the US market, is the conformity of public appearance to accepted standards and a crystal-clear reputation. Thomas Kincaid, whose biography was carefully verified by the patterns of the ideal American, was an ideal family man for a while: he married a girl he loved from childhood, had four daughters named after famous American artists - Merritt Chase (1849-1916)) , Chandler (Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952)), Winsor (Winsor McCay (1867-1934)) and Everett (Everett Shinn (1876-1953)).

An excellent marketing move was that he often inscribed in the images in the pictures the initials of his wife and daughters. Who refuses from the sporting interest to find them among a million strokes and strokes?

The second name for all daughters was Christian - himself Thomas called the religion "devout Christian", although there is no official such confession. Thomas Kincaid, whose paintings contain many religious symbols, often spoke about the divine origin of his talent and inspiration, about the moralizing function of his works. His pen belongs to many books of appropriate content. "Do not complicate life, often go with your family" - such postulates were the main content of such texts.

He did a lot of charity work and was offended when journalists did not write about it more, but about his detention for driving under the influence and about how he, being a sub-shed, pissed on the Winnie the Pooh figurine at Disneyland.

Commercial network

Of course, he wanted recognition among professionals. But most of them did not even envy the financial success of Kincaid - too different, in fact, he was engaged. What Thomas Kinkade created, whose pictures, from the point of view of the classical school, look like amateur ones, were not attributed to naive art, where the message does not have such an unambiguous commercial character. His ideal and a model he called Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), which also looked cunning. Rockwell's canvases, apart from all understandable realism and kindness, had virtuosic pictorial technique, semantic ambiguity and amazing humor and irony, which the blissful landscapes of Thomas Kincaid lacked by default.

Serious galleries exhibited Kincaid, so he created a whole network for their sale, which again was a successful marketing move. Fairy-tale houses and lovely landscapes were scattered by thousands in the form of repetitions, printed on textured canvases, in the form of postcards, illuminated panels, puzzles, etc. Soon his firm Media Arts Group Inc proudly reported that in one of the twenty American homes there is Picture of Kincaid. He was called the most popular artist of the USA, he was given a lot of awards and titles, mainly for the number of sold works.

Dramatic care

In 2011, Thomas and his wife Nanett divorced, six months later, he fell in with a younger girlfriend, and on April 6, 2012, died of a huge dose of Valium and alcohol. Still, he was a real artist, something his soul gave no peace, pushed to find the meaning of his work, and then into violent drinking-bouts. I want to think that this is not only his father's bad heredity.

But even after death, new pictures of Kincaid appear, written by the artists of his company, who mastered his manner to the smallest detail under the supervision of Thomas himself. They differ from Kincaid's originals only by the presence in the corner of a special stamp. So many fans of his work can be hoped that this comforting source for them will not run out.

And it's good, because many people really find in Kinkade's pictures an outlet in our harsh and cruel world, consider his works as the best examples of painting. The main thing is that they are not the only ones for them.