Beauty Breaks at Dawn 1996

Eyvind Earle’s landscape, “Beauty Breaks at Dawn” is like a stage set, painted with flat, precise lines, the paint almost like smooth enamel. You can see his mastery of layering; the way the colors create depth, yet the whole scene feels like a tapestry. Look at the way he’s built up the trees, each branch and leaf sharply defined. It’s an almost obsessive attention to detail, but that’s part of the charm. These graphic shapes give the whole image a dream-like quality. Earle was an admirer of Van Gogh so you can see the Dutch artist's influence in the emotional response to nature. The way Earle flattens the space, it is similar to aspects of Japanese landscape painting. What I love about “Beauty Breaks at Dawn” is how it reminds us that art doesn't have to be messy to be moving. It invites us to see the world in a new way, to appreciate the beauty in the unexpected.