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Kinkade, Thomas - by Gregory Wolfe
Thomas Kinkade – Art in a Fallen World
by Gregory Wolfe
When the newly renovated Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., was reopened in 2010, the single most dramatic work of art inside was a 15-by-31-foot mural called The Cross, painted by Thomas Kinkade. In a video explaining the work, Kinkade speaks of the commission (by Franklin Graham) as "a moment of divine inspiration" and says that the painting offers viewers "a glimpse of a heavenly realm." Humble as the Graham Library may be in comparison, it's hard not to see in this epic painting and its creator a faint echo of the Sistine Chapel and its own heroic muralist.