Even Tide 1994

Curator: Eyvind Earle's "Even Tide," painted in 1994 using tempera, presents a strikingly stylized landscape. It’s really a vivid embrace of nature simplified. Editor: Oh, it’s hypnotic. Those rolling hills almost vibrate, and those stark, silhouetted trees—they feel like watching a stage set, just as the curtain's about to fall. There's a kind of theatrical silence to it. Curator: Absolutely, the use of tempera lends that beautiful matte finish, and Earle’s meticulous brushwork creates such crisp lines, reinforcing the stylized forms. It’s landscape painting through a graphic lens. How do you think it communicates more broadly with that kind of dramatic vision? Editor: Well, Earle had a long career as a background artist for Disney, and you really see it. Everything's rendered beautifully and meticulously with very fine layers, like it might fit right into 'Sleeping Beauty'. You almost expect a princess to appear from behind those monolithic shapes, like stage flats from a dream. It's like natural landscape becomes a very elegant symbol. It reminds you that idealized views of natural scenes can function politically as a representation of national heritage and values. What looks lovely to us is part of this wider cultural and sometimes very politicised dialogue. Curator: That’s a rich idea, this tension between personal expression and wider, often subliminal social messaging in such deceptively serene art. It also speaks to a tradition of artists who designed stage sets and used a theatrical structure to reveal an aesthetic landscape, or social point of view. Think of Gordon Craig. In fact, to see that drama you spoke of being distilled down to almost complete calm, where everything is intensely poised for a story but ultimately holds its tongue. Editor: Yes, and there’s a flatness here as well, almost like it's daring us to break the fourth wall! The lack of recession beyond those few landscape features actually serves to bring it even more intimately towards us. Curator: Indeed. He gives you just enough to imagine it yourself. Thanks to his incredible style, that memory sticks with you long after you’ve moved away from it. Editor: Exactly, that feeling of twilight never seems to fade completely, does it?