Sea, Cliff and Pine 1988

Eyvind Earle made this landscape painting, Sea, Cliff and Pine, and immediately the colors strike me as super graphic, like blocks of tone, which creates a kind of flattened space. It makes me think of stage sets or even cartoons. And check out that tree, how it swoops and dives. It looks both alive and totally designed. It’s not just a tree; it’s a graphic element, almost like a letter in a strange alphabet. The color in the tree is amazing, with areas of red which give it an almost burnt feel. What's really cool is how Earle balances the natural and the artificial. It reminds me a bit of some Japanese prints, where nature is stylized into these elegant forms. But there's also something really modern about it, how he simplifies everything down to its essential shapes. This painting reminds us that seeing isn't just about looking; it’s about how we choose to frame and interpret the world around us.