An Earlier "Painter of Light"



Thomas Kinkade (b. 1958) used the slogan "The Painter of Light" for many years while building his artistic sales empire. The image above is an example I snatched from the Web; it even has a Kinkade stamp asserting that it's the real thing. Most of his twilight-plus-glowing-windows paintings are rural or semi-rural scenes, but he also does some urban scenes such as the one above. He also can be a better painter than one might gather from seeing originals and giclées in galleries, but a guy has to earn a living.

There being not much totally new under the artistic sun, I hereby offer some paintings of Paris street scenes by Édouard Cortes (1882-1969):




Cortes' Paris paintings interest me because of his attention to detail. Note the Citroën by the cyclist in the image immediately above: he didn't just dash off a generic car shape.