Paul Earle Canadian, 1872-1955

Completed in 1923, Farm Gate by Paul Earle is an oil on wood panel landscape painting depicting a country road alongside a field or pasture. The only pictured division existing between the two are the posts from a fence presumed to have fallen sometime in the distant past. The sole portion left intact being a humble gate from which the piece gets its name.

The piece utilizes warm tones, thereby portraying a warm summer day on the farm. In spite of its name, Earle’s Farm Gate is devoid of any farm or human life. This absence contributes to the sense of calm given to viewers by the painting, as they contemplate upon the scenery before them in solitude.

Earle applied short quick brushstrokes to create the foliage of the two trees in the middle-ground of the painting; generating a sense of movement as the tree’s branches shake with the breeze that passes through them. The placement of both trees on the right side of the panel gives the piece its asymmetric balance, and moves the viewer’s eye from the rightmost tree to the farm gate.