Thomas Kinkade's paintings capture light in a way that no other paintings manage to do, at least the paintings I have seen up to this point in my life. There is absolutely something divine about that light and the feelings it creates in the viewer. The closest I can come to adequately describing his paintings is that they portray a vision of heaven, a vision that I can relate to--coming home, the feeling of belonging somewhere (inclusive), family, love, warmth, spirituality, inspiration, joy, and pastoral settings that are all about peace. They tap into a universal longing in us all--the longing to be a part of an all-encompassing love as felt in that light, and to feel that peace; they are divinely-inspired. Perhaps the artist felt that longing as well; his personal life was certainly not as peaceful as the life portrayed in his paintings. Regardless of how Kinkade lived his life, he had a God-given talent that he used well to produce some beautiful paintings. He did not hide 'his light under a bushel basket'. His critics have accused him of being overly-sentimental, among other things, but I don't agree with them. I don't find his paintings sentimental, I find them to be spiritually-influenced visualizations of how life could be, and perhaps that is what the artist both longed for and wished to impart.
