Three Horses 1987

Eyvind Earle made this piece, "Three Horses", with paint, I think, sometime in the 20th century. It’s mostly in blues and darker shades, except for the yellows on the mountains. What I notice first is the flatness of the image, how the paint seems to exist in blocks. It gives the landscape and even the horses, a kind of cartoonish quality, even though it's so serious and imposing. There are no visible brushstrokes, no texture, just solid areas of color sitting side by side. Look at how the mountain dominates the background, a huge triangle of shadow. Then, you see the lines on the other mountain where the sun hits, almost like ruled edges. It's a bit like Wayne Thiebaud's landscapes, flattening things, making the world look like a confection. It's this that shapes my experience, this graphic quality, that makes the image so powerful and still, so obviously fake, and deeply moving.