“Eyvind Earle, a 21-year-old youngster with a yen for adventure and for paint, traveled more than 3,000 miles across the continent on his bicycle to see America, and got from seeing, material for enough pictures to comprise a one-man exhibition. He was successful on both counts. His exhibition opened last week at the Morgan Gallery, but if you expect to find in it travel notes on America, you will be disappointed. No gas stations or hot-dog stands here, no Grand Canyon, no painted desert, nor any of the “attractions” the tourist pamphlets tell you about. I suppose, really, that they might have been painted anywhere at all. But only one so affected by nature as Mr. Earle was, as a result of his trip could possibly have done them this way. Instead of depicting the obvious, he has captured with his brush the quality of air after a rain in the desert, of moonlight on a still night in the mountains, of winter winds sweeping across unbroken fields, of trees clothed by autumn in savage garb. There is poetry in them and imagination, and extraordinary delicacy of tone and brush. In none are there any recognizable aspects of distinct locale. Any imaginative craftsman with the brush and even a good photographer could have achieved that. It takes a highly sensitive and skilled artist to do what this youth has done.” |