Howard Pyle: The Spirit of America

"Even Sir William Berkeley Saw He Must Yield"
by Howard Pyle

"Throughout his whole career there was always one subject in which Howard Pyle was preeminently interested, and that was the history of the United States. His reputation for this widespread knowledge of this country's history was so well-known to other artists that he was frequently called upon to supply some fellow craftsman with the details for a picture. He never failed to give the necessary information, and to it he always added a word of encouragement. But the chief merit of his historical research was that it found its expression in a series of pictures which interpreted American history and life. The series finally included so many pictures, in fact, that it could almost serve as a pictorial history of the nation. 

So much absorption in an American past give him a profound appreciation of everything connected with it. He could not see an old house destroyed without undergoing severe mental tortures, and the mere repairing of famous old buildings would move him to their support. In a letter he explained:

'Old buildings and fragments of the past are to me very and vitally alive with the things of the past. When, for instance, I saw your carpenters working upon the Old Swede's Church I could not but picture to myself in fancy the old builders of that past day in knee breeches and their leather aprons and their uncouth tools building up that which the present generation was tearing down. I understand exactly the unfortunate necessity of such repairs, but it also grieves me sadly to see them.'

It is interesting that in the field of history it was almost solely through pictures that Pyle appealed to his audience. He made many attempts to adapt his historical knowledge to the written page, but nearly all were unsuccessful. Yet each was illustrated by excellent drawings. This is puzzling because of his unflagging interest in the subject.

On August 20, 1895, the editor of 'Harper's Monthly,' wrote to him proposing a series of illustrations for articles on George Washington by Professor Woodrow Wilson. Pyle not only created the art but since his own knowledge of the subject was so immense, his input resulted in a number of changes in the text as well. When the work was complete, his Washington pictures were exhibited first at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, where he was teaching at the time, and then at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. For each of these exhibitions he himself published a catalog, printed with old black-letter type, imitating in form and content the publications of the Revolutionary days."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Howard Pyle, A Chronicle" by Charles D. Abbott.)