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The Complete Graphics and Selected Poems and Writings, 1940-1990
Book by Earle, Eyvind
365 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 7, 2016
Beautifully printed with vivid colors and thick pages. This book works as an amazing coffee table book and that I can flip through it time and time again to find inspiration in his work. Each piece is printed clearly and boldly, except I do believe that it is not every graphic he has ever made. It lacks his early watercolors and mostly showcases his landscapes and studies of tree trunks and branches.
Additionally, the documentation of each piece is lacking. Perhaps this decision was meant to minimize the text or simplify the design of each page, but without the dates, medium, or size of each piece, it is hard to appreciate each work to their full capacity. There is a directory in the back of the book with date and size information (as well as other technical information such as number of prints made, etc.), but flipping back and forth through this enormous book is incredibly unwieldy and inconvenient.
However, do not let these minor details deter you from checking out this book. I guarantee you that upon opening up the pages and skimming through a few, anyone will instantly become engaged in Eyvind Earle's masterful work.
Additionally, the documentation of each piece is lacking. Perhaps this decision was meant to minimize the text or simplify the design of each page, but without the dates, medium, or size of each piece, it is hard to appreciate each work to their full capacity. There is a directory in the back of the book with date and size information (as well as other technical information such as number of prints made, etc.), but flipping back and forth through this enormous book is incredibly unwieldy and inconvenient.
However, do not let these minor details deter you from checking out this book. I guarantee you that upon opening up the pages and skimming through a few, anyone will instantly become engaged in Eyvind Earle's masterful work.
June 29, 2008
beautiful, and beastly expensive. my copy is borrowed, and i'm dead if i get so much as a fingerprint on it.
earl was a master of he semi abstract landscape. modernizing ancient japanese themes in some paintings, sometimes going far beyond anything that could be described in relation to anything else.
if there is a criticism, it's that he set the style for a thousand horrible imitators. you can't wander through a crafts fair without seeing a bad knockoff.
earl was a master of he semi abstract landscape. modernizing ancient japanese themes in some paintings, sometimes going far beyond anything that could be described in relation to anything else.
if there is a criticism, it's that he set the style for a thousand horrible imitators. you can't wander through a crafts fair without seeing a bad knockoff.
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March 14, 2024So this massive coffee table book had a lot more text than I initially expected although I 100% should have anticipated it considering how "selected poems and writings" is in the title. Altogether, there were probably at least 100 poems since the collection is over 300 pages and has a poem on the left side of every page and a painting on the right.
For the art and quality of the book alone, I'd give this book an easy 5 stars. Unfortunately, Earle was a lot more talented at painting than he was at writing poetry. His autobiography at the beginning of the collection was really interesting as were the family photos, but the written content should have ended at that because his poems were utterly uninspiring and often redundant. The rhyme schemes got old real fast, and I couldn't tell if the poems were written to be read alongside specific paintings or if they were just put together by the editor (some poems seems to explicitly relate to the images beside them while other seems entirely unrelated). To make things worse, the text was in all caps, which made it significantly harder to read. I think if there were 20 or so of Earle's best poems and writings in this collection, it would have improved the reading experience significantly, but having to slog through 100+ of them made for a subpar experience. The contrast between the weak poems and the brilliant art just made it harder to tolerate the poetry - I'd have an emotional response looking at some really brilliant paintings, and those feelings would abruptly crash and burn as I had to skim through the amateur poems on the next page.
For anyone who loves Earle's art, I'd still highly recommend this book if it can be found in good edition for a reasonable price since it's a complete collection of all his personal work from 1940-1990. I was amazed how a lot of the best painting in the collection are from those later years - I think the cover image (Fog Light?) was painted in 1990 when Earle was almost 80, which is really cool since you rarely (if ever) encounter that level of mastery in the works of authors at that age. Most prolific authors seem to write their best work when they are middle-aged, although I'm sure there are exceptions.
My only advice would be to pretend the poems don't exist and enjoy this book as a collection of art.
No rating - there's too much of a disconnect between the quality of the art and the quality of the poetry, and coffee table books are difficult to rate anyway since they're not meant to be read cover to cover, much less in a single sitting.
For the art and quality of the book alone, I'd give this book an easy 5 stars. Unfortunately, Earle was a lot more talented at painting than he was at writing poetry. His autobiography at the beginning of the collection was really interesting as were the family photos, but the written content should have ended at that because his poems were utterly uninspiring and often redundant. The rhyme schemes got old real fast, and I couldn't tell if the poems were written to be read alongside specific paintings or if they were just put together by the editor (some poems seems to explicitly relate to the images beside them while other seems entirely unrelated). To make things worse, the text was in all caps, which made it significantly harder to read. I think if there were 20 or so of Earle's best poems and writings in this collection, it would have improved the reading experience significantly, but having to slog through 100+ of them made for a subpar experience. The contrast between the weak poems and the brilliant art just made it harder to tolerate the poetry - I'd have an emotional response looking at some really brilliant paintings, and those feelings would abruptly crash and burn as I had to skim through the amateur poems on the next page.
For anyone who loves Earle's art, I'd still highly recommend this book if it can be found in good edition for a reasonable price since it's a complete collection of all his personal work from 1940-1990. I was amazed how a lot of the best painting in the collection are from those later years - I think the cover image (Fog Light?) was painted in 1990 when Earle was almost 80, which is really cool since you rarely (if ever) encounter that level of mastery in the works of authors at that age. Most prolific authors seem to write their best work when they are middle-aged, although I'm sure there are exceptions.
My only advice would be to pretend the poems don't exist and enjoy this book as a collection of art.
No rating - there's too much of a disconnect between the quality of the art and the quality of the poetry, and coffee table books are difficult to rate anyway since they're not meant to be read cover to cover, much less in a single sitting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews