The Great Red Barn 1985

Eyvind Earle made “The Great Red Barn” and used flat colors, hard edges, and simplified shapes. It’s not about realism, but about feeling. Look at that barn – a big, slightly unreal red, like a memory. Then, those trees, stark and black, feel like graphic symbols. It’s all laid out in simple planes, almost like stage scenery. The paint is smooth, no brushstrokes, which gives it a poster-like quality. And those vertical lines on the barn create a rhythm. Think about that red against the black. It’s not just a barn, it's a symbol. Earle's work reminds me of artists like Milton Avery, who also played with simplified forms and color to create atmosphere, but also the precisionist paintings of Charles Demuth, where industrial buildings become geometric icons. It’s like a distillation, capturing the essence of a barn, not its details. Art like this lives in the realm of suggestion, not imitation.