100 Years of Illustration

Howard Pyle: An Appreciation

I hope you haven't been bored with all the attention paid to Howard Pyle. He was not only one of the very best illustrators of all time but he generously shared his talent and knowledge with his younger peers. Nobody has ever done for his fellow man what this giant did in his lifetime.

The greatest testament to Howard Pyle is the roster of brilliant talent that follows, and they comprise but a partial list of those who were fortunate enough to attend his classes or work in his studio.

C.W. (Clifford Warren) Ashley, 1881-1947. The Christmas Exile, from Scribner's Monthly Magazine for December 1909.

W.J. (William James) Aylward, 1875-1956. The Waterside Life at Mystic (CT). An illustration for The Nutmeg Coast, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for September 1916.

Anna Whelan Betts, dates unknown. Nelly Custis in the Mount Vernon Garden, from The Century Magazine for May 1906.

Harvey Dunn, 1884-1952. Something for Supper, 1943. A painting in the collection of the
South Dakota Art Museum.

Elizabeth Shippen Green, 1871-1954. Jehane, the Constant Lover, from "The Navarrese," by James Branch Cabell, Harper's Monthly Magazine for September 1907. Shippen Green was one of the best and the most prolific of Pyle's students. (She had also studied with the noted painter Thomas Eakins.) This is not typical of her magazine work which was largely illustrations of children. However, it is one of my favorites.

Click on top image to enlarge the entire painting.

Illustrations don't get better than this. Despite the crude color separations and printing it's still a dazzling portrait. Another lovely portrait.

Violet Oakley, 1874-1961. The Easter Hymn, from The Century Magazine for March 1904.

Thornton Oakley, 1881-1955. A colleague and friend, but not the husband of Violet Oakley, as I had always assumed. Setting Out for a Tiger Hunt. Illustration for On the Indian Railway, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for October 1916.

Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966. I am Sick of Being a Princess. Illustration for The Princess and the Boy, from The Century Magazine for December 1904.

More Parrish illustrations of the period.

Jessie Willcox Smith, 1863-1935. Illustration for Dickens's Children: Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit on Christmas Day. One of four illustrations from Scribner's Monthly Magazine for December 1910.

Thanks to author Michael Glaser, here's a link to Smith, Green and Oakley, The Red Rose Girls.

Sarah S. Stilwell-Weber, 1878-1939. In October, from Scribner's Monthly Magazine for October 1905. Click on her link listed in the Categories section for more examples of her work.

E.A. (Edward Arthur) Wilson, 1886-1970. Illustration from Iron Men and Wooden Ship, a collection of Sea Chanteys, first published by Doubleday in 1924.

N.C. (Newell Converse) Wyeth, 1882-1945. Famous as a book illustrator and father of painter Andrew Wyeth. Illustration for On the Fourth Day Comes the Astrologer from his Crumbling Old Tower, by Mark Twain, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for July 1916.

Next: Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944) and His Imitators

Howard Pyle's Civil War

The American Civil War raged not far from Howard Pyle's boyhood home of Wilmington, Delaware, where troop trains rattled south to Washington and the battlefields beyond. Crowded hospital railroad cars full of the sick and wounded and cattle cars crammed with CSA prisoners made their way north. Along the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal boys his age did what they could to help the sick and wounded who filled the canal barges. Pyle's Civil War memories went back as little in time as those of the middle aged today recalling the Vietnamese Civil War. He would have no trouble finding uniforms and weapons with which to outfit his models or visualizing the scenes his editors requested for his memory of those desperate days was vivid.

The Charge, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for November 1904.

"I Thought of You When I Was Falling." He Said Vaguely, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for November 1904.

Abraham Lincoln. Illustration for "Lincoln's Last Day" from Harper's Monthly Magazine for September 1907.

The Midnight Court Martial, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for September 1909.

They Talked it Over –– With Me Sitting on a Horse, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for November 1909.

It Was a Comrade From His Own Regiment, from Harper's Monthly Magazine for November 1909.

General [Robert E.] Lee on His Famous Charger "Traveller," from Harper's Monthly Magazine for February 1911.

>>>For the gentleman who asked me the size of the painting: It's 24-1/8 x 16 inches and can probably be seen either at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington DE or at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford PA. They are not far from each other if you're down that way. Better phone them first to determine the whereabouts of the painting if you want to see it. AOL lost this mail so I could not answer you directly.<<<

Howard Pyle died in Florence, Italy, on the ninth of November in that same year.

Next: Howard Pyle: An Appreciation

Howard Pyle's Portraits of Women

There are subjects of which the less said, the better. One such subject is the beauty of women.

I would not presume to intellectualize about the women painted by Howard Pyle beyond what anyone can see by looking at them in the stories he illustrated. I’m calling them portraits and you may disagree, but in my opinion these are complete paintings, more than mere illustration. Each image may be enlarged by clicking on it. The titles of the illustrations and dates in which they appeared in Harper's Monthly Magazine appear directly below the portraits.

Catherine De Vaucelles, in her Garden, from "In Necessity's Mortar," October 19004.

Mellicent Stood Motionless, Like a Wild Thing at Gaze, from "Mellicent," January 1905.

Beatrix and Esmond, from "Pictures from Thackery," August 1906.

Becky Sharp and Lord Steyne, from "Pictures from Thackery," December 1906.

A Figure to Provoke Tears, from "A Sense of Scarlet," February 1907.

Diana Sherley, from "The Ultimate Master," November 1908.

The Officers Would be Waiting Till She Should Appear, from: "Doña Victoria," February 1908.

The Dancer, from "Lola," January 1909.

Next: Howard Pyle's Civil War.

Howard Pyle: Captain Keitt, 1907

By 1907 when this spectacular illustration (click on image to enlarge) appeared in Harper's Monthly Magazine for August, Howard Pyle's star was descending in the heavens and this featured piece stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the illustrations he did for The Ruby of Kishmoor, of which he was author as well.

These are two of the spot illustrations that were mortised within the text. They are chalky, and appear to have gotten by the usually fastidious master who usually destroyed work he felt missed the mark. Or, perhaps it was because of problems with an editor or art director. We can only speculate.

More than likely it was that there was a new star burning even brighter, Charles Dana Gibson and his "slashing and spectacular pen technique," to quote Henry Pitz. The drawing below is Gibson's fetching profile of the young actress Evelyn Nesbit which was entitled: Eternal Question.

Next: Howard Pyle's portraits of women

Howard Pyle: The Fate of a Treasure-Town, 1905

This is the master at his best and at the peak of his career. Some of his students and contemporaries have come close but Howard Pyle owns the subject of pirates. Click on this title page to enlarge and read some of the introduction. The man could write. Consider that the year of publication was 1905, one hundred years ago, when some of the most respected authors of the time are almost unreadable today.

An Attack on a Galleon.

Pyle wrote: "Perhaps one of the convoys lags from the rest of the fleet. There comes skimming out from behind the fringed headland a lean, low pinnace full of half-naked cutthroats–white, black, and yellow. It swoops down upon the derelict galleon like the kestrel upon the wild goose...." Click on image to enlarge.

"A lonely island; a long strip of coral sand with combing breakers bursting upon it; a shining mass of treasure poured out upon a sail-cloth spread upon a beach; a circle of hungry-eyed, wolfish, unshaven, partly clad figures gathered about in the sunlight; the pirate chief standing over the booty—counting, adding, subtracting, parcelling.

"So the treasure was divided...."

Click on either of the images above to enlarge.

Extorting Tribune from the Citizens.

"So the [pirates] returned to [Cartagena], which now lay entirely at their mercy without even the dim shadow of . . . authority as a protection. What followed need not be written in full; what they did may better be imagined than told. It is not said how long they remained, but it was long enough to hunt every odd corner for remnants of treasure that had been left behind. In the end, hearing further news of the approach of the Dutch and English fleet, they demanded a payment of 5,000,000 livres as the price of their departure without burning the town—and, incredible as it may sound, they got their price."

The Buccaneer was a Picturesque Fellow.

"The buccaneer was a picturesque fellow when you regard him from this long distance away. He belonged to no country and recognized no kith or kin of human nationality. He spent his money like a prince, and was very well satisfied to live rapidly, even if in so doing his death should come upon him with equal celerity. He clothed himself in a picturesque medley of rags, tatters, and finery. He loved gold and silver ornaments—ear-rings, finger-rings, bracelets, chains,—and he ornamented himself profusely with such gewgaws. He affected a great deal of finery of a sort—a tattered shirt or even a bare skin mattered not very much to him provided he was able to hide his semi-nakedness beneath some such finery as a velvet cloak or a sash of scarlet silk; patched breeches were not regarded when he had a fine leather belt with a silver buckle and a good sword hanging to it. And always there were a long-barrelled pistol or two and a good handy knife stuck in a waist-belt with which to command respect.

"Such was the buccaneer of the seventeeth century."

Click on images to enlarge.

Next: Howard Pyle: Captain Keitt, 1907

Howard Pyle: The True Captain Kidd, 1902

Factual information about pirates is scarce. Most stories and books about the rascals are based on the vivid imagination of their authors and some facts and dates gleaned from the few titles published at the time that pirates, such as William Kidd, were tried before judges, sentenced and convicted before being hanged in a public spectacle.

In Kidd's case, it took a jury all of 30 minutes to decide his fate, which was carried out at Execution Dock, London, on 12 May 1701, only three days after sentence was imposed.

John D. Champlin, Jr., the author of this seemingly accurate piece is also noted as co-author of a treatise on tiddlywinks, published in The Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Games and Sports, by John D. Champlin Jr. and Arthur E. Bostwick, 1890. Click on image to enlarge detail of the drawing.

Pyle has drawn an imaginary portrait of William Kidd. The cold steely eyes make him a very scary creature, indeed. However, there is an article in the papers of author Thomas Janvier in Harvard's Houghton Library entitled Captain Kidd Not a Pirate written by the very same John D. Champlin, Jr. Could he have had a change of heart?

Click on this images and those below to enlarge.

The technique which Pyle used for these drawings appears to be some kind of pencil application. We know from Henry Pitz's book that he taught his students to draw with sharpened sticks of artist's charcoal on French charcoal paper, but this looks as if he might have used colored pencils on papers of various textures. Or the drawings could be reproductions of color lithographs. (Watercolor over charcoal would only cause problems unless an entire drawing was totally preserved by a fixative spray.) In any case, they are meticulously done and completely different from the pirate painting from The Fate of a Treasure Town that appeared in the first Howard Pyle post uploaded.

This has endured as one of Howard Pyle's most famous pirate images. It was the last illustration in this piece that appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine for December 1902.

Next: More Pirates – Probably Howard Pyle's Best Illustrations

Howard Pyle: Sindbad on Burrator, 1902

The illustrations for this story by "Q," A.T. Quiller-Couch, which appeared in Scribner's Monthly Magazine for August 1902, are not milestones in Pyle's career so much as stepping stones. He and his wife had visited the island of Jamaica in 1889 where one can assume that he was dazzled by the intense light and dark shadows and the lush tropical landscape.

Click on image to enlarge. The quality of this print reproduction leaves much to be desired.

This chase scene on a tropical beach is the best of the lot, probably because Pyle had compiled some watercolor sketches and notes while on the Jamaica trip.

This was quite startling for the time, I believe, and probably influenced generations of magazine illustrators since it was first published. An enlarged section appears below.

Henry Pitz described Pyle's predicament his The Brandywine Tradition, first published in 1968:

"[Pyle] was usually happiest when he was providing pictures for his own texts. His contract with Harper, calling for three pictures a month, was his major source of income and gave him the necessary sense of financial security, but it had its treadmill aspects. There were times when he would have liked to have escaped its relentless demands. . . ."

This story is probably a case in point. The writer owes much to the style of Robert Louis Stevenson in a heavy-handed way, and one can imagine Pyle's impatience with the vivid text. In this illustration it seems that Pyle might have used the tropical plant to cover a foot he wasn't happy with and didn't bother to illustrate the description (which follows) of the Indian's face which he hid completely in deep black shadow.

"The man – a yellow-faced fellow but young in figure – muttered something in a gibberish new to me, and made as if excusing himself. It gave me an ugly start to see that his eyes were yellow too, with long slits for pupils; but I saw too that he was afraid of me, and being in a towering rage myself, I out with my kris.

" ' Now look here,’ I said; 'I don’t understand what you say, but maybe you understand this. Walk. And if I catch you here again, you’ll need someone to sew you up. . . .' "

Next: Howard Pyle's illustrations for The True Captain Kidd.

Howard Pyle: King Arthur and His Knights

[The Story of King Arthur and his Knights, written and illustrated by Howard Pyle is copyright © 1903 by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and first published in November 1903. Subsequent editions and reprints have been published by Scribner's as well as Dover Publications.]

Henry C. Pitz, in his excellent book, The Brandywine Tradition, Houghton Mifflin, 1969, has this to say of Pyle’s King Arthur:

". . . it was an opulent stirring volume which opened the gate to an imaginary empire of medieval legend. It did not reflect the merriment of the Robin Hood or the innocence of
The Wonder Clock, but it had much of the power, masculinity and impressiveness of Otto of the Silver Hand. Its text captured the medieval spirit, yet the book was readable. The pictures reflected the influence of Albrecht Dürer as it had been transformed by Howard Pyle. The story had been a success when serialized in the pages of St. Nicholas, and it was both an immediate and lasting success as a book. Today it occupies a permanent place on the shelf of children’s classics."

Click on the following images to enlarge.

Pitz also tells us that "Except for the King Arthur series, the pictures of his later years concerned themselves entirely with adult subject material [not to be confused with what adult subject material means today] and, as a consequence, they became more factual than imaginative."

The illustrations above and the following vignettes from the book illustrate and glorify feminine beauty and appear to me to be that Pyle was already well on his way to leaving the world of children's literature. Click on images to enlarge.

[A second color that did not appear in the original drawings has been added in these images for effect.]

Next: Howard Pyle's Sindbad.

Howard Pyle: The Travels of the Soul

Scanned from the original printing.

A portion of the illustration.

The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine published this colorplate for Pyle’s The Travels of the Soul in its December issue of 1902. Henry C. Pitz, a very significant book illustrator wrote about this piece in his splendid book, The Brandywine Tradition, " . . . . it was plain that the new [four-color printing] process had reached a triumphant level. [Pyle’s illustrations for The Travels of the Soul] are extraordinary examples of their kind for such an early date. They have an enamel-like richness of color that wraps the figures in the light and shadow of another world, to make the group one of Pyle’s happiest excursions into the pictorial imagination. Up to that time there had been nothing like it in American illustration."

Greetings of the Season. Have a Splendid New Year.

Next: Howard Pyle's King Arthur and His Knights

Howard Pyle: Spirituality

Howard Pyle grew up in a family of Wilmington, Delaware, Quakers who later embraced the Swedenborgian faith without total acceptance of all its principles. However, there is much to be seen in Pyle's work of angels and supernatural images. The following illustrations are offered as examples of his fascination with otherworldly subjects.

Click on the image below for an enlarged view of this heralding angel.

Click on any of the three images above for enlarged views.

I have no idea what this illustration is all about and include it because I find it to be so typical for the period. It also begs the question, why is the crescent moon so distracting, being as it is so close to the heroine's head? (Perhaps it was mentioned in the story it illustrates.) It also seems to cross the line into gallery painting, with Pyle having a foot in each camp.

Even in this illustration of an Edith Wharton poem, Pyle seems to morph his spiritual style with that of the Italian religious painters of the Renaissance. You know by now that I'm not an academic or art historian so I can only offer the opinions of an illustrator, and from that perspective I can assure you that it is a remarkable drawing for a magazine illustration of 1901. Click on either image to enlarge.

Next: a Holiday Interlude.