Gray Coastline 1988

Eyvind Earle created this landscape, Gray Coastline, sometime in the 20th century. Earle's simplified landscape aesthetic is rooted in the Regionalist landscape painting style of the 1930s, but has also been compared to 15th century tapestry design. What's interesting is how Earle's work gained popular recognition through his background paintings for Disney in the 1950s, particularly for Sleeping Beauty. Here, we might think about the visual codes associated with fairy tales. What does it mean to render a landscape as a backdrop, or as a setting for fantasy? How is Earle using visual language to create a mood? As art historians, we look for the ways that Earle’s artwork is situated in a specific social and cultural time. We study the art market, the museum system, and other venues of display to show how these institutions shaped art. Through these resources, we can better understand the meaning of art as something contingent on social and institutional context.