Painting by Numbers

It depends on what you’re after and how you execute your work. Thomas Kinkade made a fortune painting lighthouses. Still, he died unhappy, and he’s unlikely to be remembered as a seminal figure in American art.

Nevertheless, it’s perfectly possible to paint a sensitive, honest lighthouse or lobster boat. They are iconic for a reason: they speak to us of labor, of man’s relationship to nature, and of the sea.

In Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid’s Scientific Guide to Art, the authors—who are themselves artists—set out to determine what were the “most wanted” and “least wanted” paintings in various countries. Most of the book describes, laboriously, the methodology of their polling process. It’s so absurd it’s funny.

America’s least-favorite painting is:

·         Paperback book size;

·         Thick, textured surfaces;

·         Geometric patterns;

·         Darker shades;

·         Sharp angles and bold stark designs;

·         Colors kept distinctly separate;

·         Gold, orange, peach and/or teal.

America’s most-favorite painting is:

·         Dishwasher-size;

·         “Realistic-looking;”

·         Outdoor scenes;

·         More vibrant shades;

·         Wild animals in their natural settings;

·         Persons in group, fully clothed and at leisure;

·         Fall scene;

·         Soft curves and playful, whimsical designs;

·         Colors blended;

·         Visible brush strokes;

·         Blue.

It turns out that lots of people like landscapes, and they also like blue. If that’s true, and if they’re also satisfying to paint, why turn our noses up at them?