Howard Pyle
Encyclopedia
Howard Pyle was an American
illustrator
and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington
, Delaware
, he spent the last year of his life in Florence
, Italy
.
__FORCETOC__
During 1894 he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University
), and after 1900 he founded his own school of art and illustration named the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. The term Brandywine School
was later applied to the illustration artists and Wyeth family artists of the Brandywine region by Pitz. Some of his more famous students were N. C. Wyeth
, Frank Schoonover
, Elenore Abbott
, Ethel Franklin Betts
, Anna Whelan Betts
, Harvey Dunn
, Clyde O. DeLand, Philip R. Goodwin
, Violet Oakley
, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle
, Olive Rush
, Allen Tupper True
, and Jessie Willcox Smith
.
His 1883 classic publication The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
remains in print, and his other books, frequently with medieval European settings, include a four-volume set on King Arthur
. He is also well known for his illustrations of pirates, and is credited with creating the now stereotypical modern image of pirate dress.
He published an original novel, Otto of the Silver Hand
, in 1888. He also illustrated historical and adventure stories for periodicals such as Harper's Weekly
and St. Nicholas Magazine
. His novel Men of Iron
was made into a movie in 1954, The Black Shield of Falworth
.
Pyle traveled to Florence, Italy to study mural painting during 1910, and died there in 1911 of a sudden kidney infection (Bright's Disease
).
In addition to numerous illustrations done for Harper's Weekly, other periodical publications, and various works of fiction intended for children, Pyle wrote and illustrated a number of books himself.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
is Pyle's synthesis of many traditional Robin Hood
legends and ballads, making of them a cohesive whole. He toned them down, however, to make them suitable for children. For instance, he modified the ballad "Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
", changing it from Robin killing fourteen foresters for not honoring a bet, to Robin defending himself against a band of armed robbers. Furthermore, Pyle has Robin kill only one man—who shoots at him first. Tales in which Robin steals all that an ambushed traveler carried, such as "Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
", are changed so that the victim keeps a third, and another third is dedicated to the poor.
Pyle did not have much more concern for historical accuracy than did the original balladeers, although he did alter the name of the queen-consort in the story "Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
" to Eleanor
(of Aquitaine), which rendered it compatible historically with the king with whom Robin eventually makes peace (King Richard the Lion-Hearted).
Indeed, none of the tales in the Robin Hood book were Pyle's own invention, with some dating back to the late Middle Ages. Rather, his achievement was in linking them to form a unified, illustrated story. "The Adventure with the Curtal Friar", for example, ceased to be a stand-alone tale, but was made part of the book's overall narrative by Pyle in order to reintroduce Friar Tuck
, because a co-operative priest was needed for the wedding of outlaw Allan a Dale
(Pyle's spelling of the original Alan-a-Dale) to his sweetheart Ellen. Again, in the original "A Gest of Robyn Hode", the life of an anonymous wrestler, who had won a bout but was likely to be murdered because he was a stranger, is saved. Pyle adapted it so that the wrestler is given the identity of David of Doncaster
—one of Robin's band in the story "Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow". Several characters that had been mentioned in only one ballad, such as David of Doncaster or Arthur a Bland
, are thus developed more fully by Pyle's novelistic treatment of the tales.
Pyle also wrote Otto of the Silver Hand
, a story about the life of the son of a robber baron during the Medieval Period. In 1887 he wrote The Wonder Clock, a collection of twenty-four tales, one for each hour of the day. Each tale was prefaced by a whimsical verse telling of traditional household goings-on at that hour, illustrated by his sister Katharine. The tales themselves were written by Pyle based on traditional European folktales. A similar volume was Pepper and Salt, or Seasoning for Young Folk, which consisted of tales of traditional types for younger readers, also illustrated.
A number of pirate legends by Pyle, including some of his illustrations, were collected as Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, published in 1921, ten years after his death. Few, if any, drawings of authentic pirate dress have been preserved, so Pyle invented a romantic view of pirate dress that has become iconic. Movie pirates from Errol Flynn
to Johnny Depp
have worn similar costumes. This style is notable for its incorporation of stereotypic Gypsy
elements, and its impracticality for working sailors.
In 1903, Pyle published Rejected of Men: A Story of To-day, a re-imagining of the story of Jesus
as if it had occurred during early twentieth-century America.
wrote of Pyle in a letter to his brother, saying that Pyle's work "...struck me dumb with admiration".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
, he spent the last year of his life in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
__FORCETOC__
During 1894 he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University
Drexel University
Drexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...
), and after 1900 he founded his own school of art and illustration named the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. The term Brandywine School
Brandywine School
The Brandywine School was a style of illustration and an artists colony in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, near Brandywine Creek, founded by artist Howard Pyle at the end of the 19th century...
was later applied to the illustration artists and Wyeth family artists of the Brandywine region by Pitz. Some of his more famous students were N. C. Wyeth
N. C. Wyeth
Newell Convers Wyeth , known as N.C. Wyeth, was an American artist and illustrator. He was the pupil of artist Howard Pyle and became one of America's greatest illustrators...
, Frank Schoonover
Frank Schoonover
Frank Earle Schoonover was an American illustrator. Born in Oxford, New Jersey, he studied under Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia and became part of what would be known as the Brandywine School...
, Elenore Abbott
Elenore Abbott
Elenore Abbott was an American book illustrator, scenic designer, and artist. Born Elenore Plaisted in Lincoln, Maine, she studied at several schools in Philadelphia and Paris...
, Ethel Franklin Betts
Ethel Franklin Betts
Ethel Franklin Betts was an American illustrator primarily of children's books during the golden age of American illustration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
, Anna Whelan Betts
Anna Whelan Betts
Anna Whelan Betts was an American illustrator and art teacher who was noted for her paintings of Victorian women in romantic settings...
, Harvey Dunn
Harvey Dunn
Harvey Thomas Dunn was an American painter. He is best known for his prairie-intimate masterpiece, The Prairie is My Garden. In this painting, a mother and her son and daughter are out gathering flowers from the quintessential prairie of the Great Plains.-Early life:Dunn was born on a homestead...
, Clyde O. DeLand, Philip R. Goodwin
Philip R. Goodwin
Philip R. Goodwin was an American painter and illustrator who specialized in depictions of wildlife, the outdoors, fishing, hunting and the Old American West. He provided illustrations for numerous books and magazines, as well as for commercial items, such as posters, advertisements and calendars...
, Violet Oakley
Violet Oakley
Violet Oakley was an American artist known for her murals and her work in stained glass. She was a student and later a faculty member at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.-Life:...
, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle
Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle
Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was an American illustrator best known for the 40 covers she created for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s and 1930s under the guidance of Post editor-in-chief, George Horace Lorimer....
, Olive Rush
Olive Rush
Olive Rush was an illustrator, muralist, and an important pioneer in Native American Art Education....
, Allen Tupper True
Allen Tupper True
Allen Tupper True was an American illustrator, easel painter and muralist who specialized in depicting the American West.-Biography:...
, and Jessie Willcox Smith
Jessie Willcox Smith
Jessie Willcox Smith was a United States illustrator famous for her work in magazines such as Ladies Home Journal and for her illustrations for children's books....
.
His 1883 classic publication The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Consisting of a series of episodes in the story of the English outlaw Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, the novel compiles traditional material into a...
remains in print, and his other books, frequently with medieval European settings, include a four-volume set on King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
. He is also well known for his illustrations of pirates, and is credited with creating the now stereotypical modern image of pirate dress.
He published an original novel, Otto of the Silver Hand
Otto of the Silver Hand
Otto of the Silver Hand is a children's novel about the Dark Ages written and illustrated by Howard Pyle. It was first published in 1888 by Charles Scribner's Sons...
, in 1888. He also illustrated historical and adventure stories for periodicals such as Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...
and St. Nicholas Magazine
St. Nicholas Magazine
St. Nicholas Magazine was a popular children's magazine, founded by Scribner's in 1873. The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, who continued her association with the magazine until her death in 1905. Dodge published work by the country's best writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Francis Hodgson...
. His novel Men of Iron
Men of Iron
Men of Iron is an 1891 novel by the American author Howard Pyle, who also illustrated it. Set in the 15th century, it is a juvenile "coming of age" work in which a young squire, Myles Falworth, becomes a knight. In Chapter 24 the knighthood ceremony is presented and described as it would be in a...
was made into a movie in 1954, The Black Shield of Falworth
The Black Shield of Falworth
The Black Shield of Falworth is a 1954 film made by Universal Studios, produced by Robert Arthur and Melville Tucker and directed by Rudolph Maté...
.
Pyle traveled to Florence, Italy to study mural painting during 1910, and died there in 1911 of a sudden kidney infection (Bright's Disease
Bright's disease
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....
).
Major works
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Consisting of a series of episodes in the story of the English outlaw Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, the novel compiles traditional material into a...
is Pyle's synthesis of many traditional Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
legends and ballads, making of them a cohesive whole. He toned them down, however, to make them suitable for children. For instance, he modified the ballad "Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham is Child ballad 139, a Robin Hood ballad, and in fact an original story.-Synopsis:A fifteen-year-old Robin Hood set out to Nottingham to compete in a shooting contest. The king's foresters make fun of him, offering a bet that he could not kill a deer. When he...
", changing it from Robin killing fourteen foresters for not honoring a bet, to Robin defending himself against a band of armed robbers. Furthermore, Pyle has Robin kill only one man—who shoots at him first. Tales in which Robin steals all that an ambushed traveler carried, such as "Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
-Synopsis:Robin Hood, knowing the bishop is coming, has his men kill a deer, puts shepherd's clothing on himself and six others, and dresses the deer by the road. The bishop threatens to have them all hanged. Robin summons the rest of his men with his horn, compels the bishop to dine with them, and...
", are changed so that the victim keeps a third, and another third is dedicated to the poor.
Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
"Robin Hood and Queen Katherine" is Child ballad 145. "Robin Hood's Chase", Child ballad 146, takes up after it.The Queen Katherine of the title is not certainly identified. The periods of time with which Robin Hood has normally been associated did not have any queens named Katherine...
" to Eleanor
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France and of England...
(of Aquitaine), which rendered it compatible historically with the king with whom Robin eventually makes peace (King Richard the Lion-Hearted).
Indeed, none of the tales in the Robin Hood book were Pyle's own invention, with some dating back to the late Middle Ages. Rather, his achievement was in linking them to form a unified, illustrated story. "The Adventure with the Curtal Friar", for example, ceased to be a stand-alone tale, but was made part of the book's overall narrative by Pyle in order to reintroduce Friar Tuck
Friar Tuck
Friar Tuck is a companion to Robin Hood in the legends about that character. He is a common character in modern Robin Hood stories, which depict him as a jovial friar and one of Robin's Merry Men. The figure of Tuck was common in the May Games festivals of England and Scotland during the 15th...
, because a co-operative priest was needed for the wedding of outlaw Allan a Dale
Alan-a-Dale
Alan-a-Dale is a figure in the Robin Hood legend...
(Pyle's spelling of the original Alan-a-Dale) to his sweetheart Ellen. Again, in the original "A Gest of Robyn Hode", the life of an anonymous wrestler, who had won a bout but was likely to be murdered because he was a stranger, is saved. Pyle adapted it so that the wrestler is given the identity of David of Doncaster
David of Doncaster
David of Doncaster is a member of Robin Hood's Merry Men in English folklore. Doncaster is a town near Barnsdale, where early ballads placed Robin Hood.-Ballads:He appears in one ballad in the Child collection, Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow...
—one of Robin's band in the story "Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow". Several characters that had been mentioned in only one ballad, such as David of Doncaster or Arthur a Bland
Arthur a Bland
Arthur a Bland is, in English folklore, a member of Robin Hood's Merry Men, though his chief appearance is in the ballad in which he joins the band. Arthur a Bland is also the name of a British Waterways tug.-Ballads:...
, are thus developed more fully by Pyle's novelistic treatment of the tales.
Otto of the Silver Hand
Otto of the Silver Hand is a children's novel about the Dark Ages written and illustrated by Howard Pyle. It was first published in 1888 by Charles Scribner's Sons...
, a story about the life of the son of a robber baron during the Medieval Period. In 1887 he wrote The Wonder Clock, a collection of twenty-four tales, one for each hour of the day. Each tale was prefaced by a whimsical verse telling of traditional household goings-on at that hour, illustrated by his sister Katharine. The tales themselves were written by Pyle based on traditional European folktales. A similar volume was Pepper and Salt, or Seasoning for Young Folk, which consisted of tales of traditional types for younger readers, also illustrated.
A number of pirate legends by Pyle, including some of his illustrations, were collected as Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, published in 1921, ten years after his death. Few, if any, drawings of authentic pirate dress have been preserved, so Pyle invented a romantic view of pirate dress that has become iconic. Movie pirates from Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
to Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
have worn similar costumes. This style is notable for its incorporation of stereotypic Gypsy
Gypsy
-Ethnic groups:* Romani people, a group widely dispersed throughout Europe* Dom people, an Indo-Aryan group** Lyuli, a Dom subgroup from Central Asia* Lom people, a group from East Anatolia and Armenia* Banjara, a group from India* Irish Travellers...
elements, and its impracticality for working sailors.
In 1903, Pyle published Rejected of Men: A Story of To-day, a re-imagining of the story of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
as if it had occurred during early twentieth-century America.
Critical response
Pyle was widely respected during his life and continues to be well regarded by illustrators and fine artists. His contemporary Vincent van GoghVincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
wrote of Pyle in a letter to his brother, saying that Pyle's work "...struck me dumb with admiration".
See also
- Stops of Various Quills (1895, as illustrator) by W. D. HowellsWilliam Dean HowellsWilliam Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...
- National Museum of American IllustrationNational Museum of American IllustrationThe National Museum of American Illustration , founded in 1998, is the first national museum to be devoted exclusively to American illustration artwork....