Rockwell and Parrish were, above all, brilliant craftsmen. Rockwell especially controlled a nearly photographic realism, which he customarily wedded to sentimentality and gentle satire. (As we see, he could do more than that, but magazine covers were his livelihood, serious art his avocation.) But those three elements combined give his work interest and depth. There's more going on in a Rockwell cover than in a Kinkade fantasy. And Kinkade's choice of images tend to repeat and repeat and repeat.

The comparison of Kinkade with Currier & Ives is a good one. Like Kinkade, Currier & Ives weren't even trying to turn out great art, and they didn't. They were simply selling products to people who wanted affordable pictures. Unlike Kinkade's stuff, though, Currier & Ives illustrate all sorts of different subjects, some of them (explosions, sinkings, etc.) rather disturbing, even if the technique is usually primitive or highly sentimental. There's more varied and sometimes subtler emotion conveyed (albeit crudely) in many C & I lithographs than in K's work.

It's one thing to like what you like. But it's self-defeating to hail cynically produced hack work as something sweet and charming, particularly when the hack's own ads are constantly telling you so.