What is a Chocolate Box Painting? 🍫(and is it Bad Art?🤔)

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Ever heard the term chocolate box painting and wondered what it meant?

Let me explain the term and I’ll give you my thoughts on whether or not this bad, low brow art  because, obviously, I won’t be able to help myself. 😉

I have been watching an old episode of Landscape Artist of the Year on Sky Arts. Love the show, of course, but in this particular episode there was a lot of scorn over ‘chocolate box painting’.

Started to rankle a bit, I confess.

What is chocolate box painting?

The term stems quite literally from the pictures that Cadbury used to put on top of their chocolate boxes. Richard Cadbury was an artist himself and at the end of the 19th century he started adding his own paintings to the chocolate boxes.. Always very sweet, rather sentimental scenes. 

So what’s wrong with that then?

Is Chocolate Box painting ‘bad’ art?

Is it worrying that ‘good’ art must apparently include something that is not beautiful?

On Landscape Artist of the Year efforts scouring the landscape for something grubby and depressing seemed to be lauded. Bonus points for including some sort of decay and or desolation.

Are we too happy these days? Is that it?

Is misery, angst and depression a higher order of artistic thing?

Surely not.

To my mind those things loom large and it is most unlikely that we will miss them but every chance that the tiny joys and everyday beauty will escape us.

Frankly, I go out of my way to try and find the sweet, heart warming and lovely things in life and then paint them.

Many artists seek out this sort of painting subject matter. There are many from the past (Sorolla and Sargent spring to mind) and I have no doubt there will be plenty more in the future.

Contemporary artist Steve Henderson explains why so very well. He says,

"I look for, and paint, beauty, as a counteracting effect of our media-saturated fascination with ugliness. Yes, the world is a brutal place, but it is also our home. There is peace, serenity, quietude, thoughtfulness, majesty, grace, joy, and hope in this home of ours -and that is what I paint". (Steve Henderson)

Well, said, Steve. Well said, indeed.

One of my favourite art books, Art as Therapy has more support for this idea.

In this book, Alain de Botton explains rather well how we seem to have this misplaced fear that feeding our sentimentality will make us insufficiently engaged with the problems of the world. The author contends that the greater problem is actually excessive gloom and concludes:

“Cheerfulness is an achievement, and hope is something to celebrate” (Alain de Botton)

I don’t know about you, but I paint because it makes me happy.

Who cares about the opinions of supposed art critics? Other people’s labels are rather meaningless. 

Paint what you like, in whatever style speaks to your heart. Yes, even if that is joyful Crayola scribbles. Actually, especially if that is Crayola scribbles. 

The world might be a happier place if we all did whatever we needed to keep the open, loving and hopeful heart of childhood alive.

So let’s get out our brushes and aim for cheerfulness.

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