The Good Life by Thomas Kinkade ~ Beginning of a Perfect Evening III, Published April 2004 - I believe that each of us carries an image of the good life in a private place very near to our hearts. Because I am a painter, I visualize The Good Life in terms of a scene that embodies the virtues and values that are most precious to me.

In The Good Life, third and final piece in my Beginning of a Perfect Evening collection, I have in effect set up my easel in that imagined space where God's bounty is manifest. It is an autumn evening: that season and time when God seems to live in the radiant sky and charge his world with special grandeur.

I identify with the fisherman, perhaps because Christ described His followers as fishers of men, and certainly because the fisherman lives in a profound harmony with nature and receives its gifts with humble gratitude. Mountain streams such as this are abundant with fat brook trout; the smoke of a cook fire rises in the still mountain air.

Key Points

1. THE GOOD LIFE is the third and final painting in the Beginning of a Perfect Evening series by Thomas Kinkade, a series that reminds us of the tranquil serenity of God’s creation.

2. A cozy cabin sits nestled beside a tranquil stream with the radiant sky and majestic mountains serving as a glorious backdrop.

3. The fisherman in THE GOOD LIFE symbolizes man’s profound harmony with nature.

4. In loving tribute to his wife Nanette, Thomas has hidden 17 N’s in THE GOOD LIFE.