Wow, Cherry’s exclamation in panel 4 was really unexpected, right!?  I mean, who would expect that after all of this nature talk, something ironic would occur? 

One might be given to thinking that, after so many years being married and living in Lost Forest (even ignoring the pre-Rivera years), Mark and Cherry would have long run out of platitudes and affirmations about nature by now. However, one high note is that we can hope Mark admonishes Cherry for her destruction of a spider’s (temporary) domicile and meal factory. Mark can’t play favorites, can he?

Art Dept. I’m glad to see, at long last, a bit more variety in panel layouts. We get a bird’s eye view in panel 1 (complete with the required bird) and a worm’s eye view in panel 2 (minus the worm, because it must have been consumed by the cardinal). 

But there is more to this than just adding different viewpoints! 

The first two panels visually emphasize Mark and Cherry as figures within nature, as they rhapsodize over its many splendors. This reminds me of classic Chinese landscape painting, where nature predominates and people are just very small travelers and nature lovers. 

The last two panels zoom in on Mark and Cherry to deliver the unneeded joke. The focus shifts to Cherry’s personal interaction with, and reaction to, the spider web. So, the position of Nature moves from the macro to the micro. And very importantly, it is in the service of reinforcing the dialog. Now, that is good design!

Nerdy Art History Note: Am I saying that Rivera was influenced by Chinese art or philosophy? I have no idea. It is a rather grandiose comparison, after all. It may be nothing more than the commonality of ideas that transcend time, place, and ethnicity. If you are not familiar with Chinese landscape painting, do an online search for “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams” by Fan Kuan, a painter of the Northern Song dynasty. Find some good images. You’ll likely need to view separate detailed images to find the travelers.