Snowy Mountain 1940

Eyvind Earle made this watercolor painting of a snowy mountain, and I can imagine him layering thin washes of diluted pigment to create this luminous effect, each layer sinking into the paper, almost like a stain. I wonder what it might have been like to stand there and observe this wintery landscape, thinking about how to capture the weight of the snow, the bare trees clinging to the side of the slopes. Earle is very good at describing the weather! See the way the light catches on the peaks and edges? It’s like he’s chasing the light across the surface with his brush. These shapes and lines make me think of the work of other landscape painters, like Cezanne, who found a way to express his inner feelings about the world through his paintings. There's an exchange of ideas happening through painting, which is really just an ongoing conversation across time. So much of painting is about looking, responding, and finding new ways to express our experience of being in the world.