Christians and Kitsch

Some have said that there is high art, low art and Christian art. The amazing and disturbing images in this book are only complemented by the profoundly thoughtful text. If you have any interest in how the Christian church has chosen to engage the world of art... pick up this text, it's fantastic.



“On the other hand, images can be so good that they are bad. Thomas Kinkade’s paintings fall into this category, rather too gently treated by Spakman who says she ‘has no reason to doubt the artist’s sincerity.’ Kinkade’s original workds and all the reproduction and miniatures he produces as their prolific offspring are promoted in a high-volume shopping galleria near you . . . His ’sweetness and light’ renderings have all the ingredients of good paintings — luminous paint handling, luscious colors, carefully rendered flowers, cottages and lighthouses, well-learned art techniques to show off skies and cloud forms — but the accumulation of all this goodness collapses into a lie, a fake world that is ultimately as lacking in mind and soul nourishment as a diet of sugar cubes." -from Lynn Aldrich's review of Betty Spackman’s book.