It is difficult to recall any one Bob Ross painting. Mountain Waterfall looks a lot like Mountain Retreat, which looks a lot like Brown Mountain before it and Autumn Mountain before that. As the host of The Joy of Painting, an American television tutorial that ran for 31 seasons between 1983 and 1994, Ross painted over 400 variations on the theme. His was an oeuvre of quantity—a prolific series of boreal mirages, like New Age desktop wallpapers. “Talent is a This story is from Kinfolk Issue Twenty-Six Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 46 Puff Piece On inflatable art. Arts & Culture Issue 45 The Whole Story The power of cradle-to-grave novels. Arts & Culture Issue 44 Hannah Traore The art world's next big thing is a gallerist. Arts & Culture Issue 43 The Sellout On the moral maze of art and money. Arts & Culture Issue 42 Dream House The rise of renderporn. Arts & Culture Issue 41 Mixed Emoji Is a picture worth a thousand words?