Santa Ynez Oaks 1974

Eyvind Earle made Santa Ynez Oaks with, what looks like, gouache or tempera, giving it that real flatness. The rendering is so controlled; you can tell he really laboured on it. I love the way the trees are lined up like they're marching into the distance! Each one is a perfect sphere. They’re like lollipops! Look at the way he's balanced the dark mass of the trees against that soft, pinky sky. It’s a high-key painting, with most of the tones being light, but then he's gone in with these really dark blues for the foliage. It's like he's created these little worlds within each tree, and they sit against that flat surface. I feel like it’s all about surface; it’s a really interesting dance between depth and flatness. He reminds me a little of Rousseau with the flat rendering. It's like he's taken a deep dive into the way we see nature, and it's an ongoing conversation. There's no right or wrong way to look at it.