A collection of essays exploring Thomas Kinkades career, his artistic production, and its impact on contemporary art as part of the broader history of American visual culture.

Illustrations viiAcknowledgments ixIntroduction / Alexis L. Boylan 1Thomas Kinkade and the History of Protestant Visual Culture in America / David Morgan 29Painter of the Right: Thomas Kinkade's Political Art / Micki McElya 54God in the Retails: Thomas Kinkade and Market Piety / Seth Feman 81Brand-Name Living from the Painter of Light / Karal Ann Marling 107Purchasing Paradise: Nostalgic Longing and the Painter of Light / Andrea Wolk Rager 124Repetition, Exclusion, and the Urbanism of Nostalgia: The Architecture of Thomas Kinkade / Christopher E. M. Pearson 143"A Temple Next Door": The Thomas Kinkade Museum and Cultural Center / Julia Alderson 165Thomas Kinkade's Heaven on Earth / Jeffrey Vallance 191Manufacturing "Masterpieces" for the Market: Thomas Kinkade and the Rhetoric of High Art / Monica Kjellman-Chapin 206Art Ethics: Thomas Kinkade and Contemporary Art / Anna Brzyski 238Bibliography 259Contributors 275Index 277