Weekend Economists Repent! The End Is Here! July 20-22, 2012

[bread_and_roses]

67. On Thomas Kinkade and Utopia

(when I started this post, I did not know this, but there evidently was a "Thomas Kinkade Heaven on Earth exhibition" according to WIKI, so my musings on the subject fit right in)

When Thomas Kinkade died not too long back, it prompted me to wonder about his extraordinary popularity. Wiki says it is estimated that 1 in 20 American homes owns a copy of one of his paintings (I have to assume in this case that "copy" includes printed on a mug or a mousepad, like the one my MiL gave me a few years ago because "I know you like art." I'd put an eye-roll in here but she did mean well)..

Now, it seems to be that anything that popular is important to understand. Why Kinkade, and not some other kitsch?

I am no scholar, and maybe someone sometime will make this a dissertation subject and show some completely other reason, but it seems to me that his extraordinary popularity must speak to very deep desires - about at least some part of a widespread vision of Utopia.

Nearly everywhere I've seen his "art" the object chosen by the owner shows a "cottage" (many of which, typical of the profound corrupt dishonesty that for me is the signature of his style, are actually the size of McMansions), surrounded by greenery and flowers or deep in pristine snow if it's a winter scene, on quiet lanes. (Wiki tells me he did lots of Christian-themed art and also mentions a Nascar (!) painting, but everywhere I see it, it is those cottages that predominate. The google images page shows about a zillion of them.)

There is a startling lack of humans or even animals in these paintings. There is nothing to make noise. There is no work or commerce. No one is cooking, eating, dancing, talking. There is no community.

What this says to me is that for nearly everyone, the "world is too much with us, late and soon." We are overworked, assaulted by noise, driven half-mad by the clamor of too many people, we are imprisoned in concrete and have too little green, we are surrounded by dangers at every turn. We are exhausted. So exhausted that all we can dream of is to retreat to some fantasy of isolated comfort and security. But we are not made for isolation - humans evolved as social creatures. What Kinkade's popularity says to me is that all too many of us have given up on the possibility of living in harmony with our fellows - we can only dream of retreat. There's on way to Utopia along that lane.

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
William Wordsworth