Green Forest 1989

Eyvind Earle made this dreamlike painting, titled "Green Forest," with flat colours and a very smooth surface. It's a kind of utopia where the natural world is stylized into a landscape of the mind. I imagine Earle, brush in hand, carefully building up the scene—layer upon layer of greens, blues, and blacks. Look how he balances the stylized forms of the trees with the almost electric blue backdrop, like light filtered through leaves. Each stroke feels deliberate, building to this harmonious whole. It reminds me of those old Disney backgrounds—Earle did work as a background artist for Disney—but here, it's like he's painting pure atmosphere. There’s something so calming about the way Earle has tamed this landscape. Like, what if nature was always this orderly, this beautiful? It's a vision, and it makes you think about what painting can do. How it can show us a world that maybe only exists in the artist's head.