The Life of Christ in Four Easy Payments

Continuing on both the Beyond Kitsch and Jesus themes from yesterday, for today I have this ad from Parade magazine:


It's a Masterpiece Sculpture inspired by Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light. There are enough capital letters in that sentence to give you an idea how important it is, right?

In case you want a close-up of the image portion without having to zoom in (or to get a larger zoom than you'd get from the full ad layout):


It's "impressively sized" at 12 inches tall. Which means any one of those human figures is what... Maybe 2.5 or 3 inches tall? It's hand-painted by skilled artisans (let's make a bet on what country they're in) "in rich, Renaissance-inspired colors." Its base is "mahogany-finished."

When I look at the second image at full size, it's very easy to tell that it's not a photo of a three-dimensional object. It's a painting or computer-based illustration of it. Why didn't the advertisers use a photo of the actual product? Maybe this is why:


I wish I could find a larger photo of the product, but this appears to be the best one. Folks just aren't posting proud pictures of their sculptures all over the interweb yet. This one comes from ebay, where the sculpture is on sale for $94.99.

The price in the ad, on the other hand, is $100 (oh, right: $99.99... that honest price point), payable in installments of $24.99, which would total to $99.95, but never mind. Plus, of course $14.99 for shipping and "service."

Remember: It's limited to 120 casting days! I wonder how many they can cast in four months

When looking at the ad's painting, the part I had wondered about the most was those clouds at the top, and the photo of the physical object does not disappoint. Jesus appears to be sitting on a cluster of spider egg sacs... at least, it looks like the ones I find around my house.

Clouds are hard enough to paint in two dimensions. Sculpting and painting them in three is asking for a whole bunch of trouble.

Still, the figures don't appear to be any worse than ones you'd find in an average resin creche scene someone might purchase. I don't know how those are priced, so I can't comment on whether the Bradford Exchange price is comparable or not.

What I dislike about this the most is the way the ad makes it look better than it does and uses puffery in the text. Given the subject, that is particularly wrong.