A Pyle Inscription

Howard Pyle sometimes drew a little picture when he signed his books, like in this copy of the 1901 edition of The Wonder Clock which he inscribed on November 5, 1901.

Margaret of Cortona

“...the illustration for ‘Margaret of Cortona’ is now in the possession of Mrs. Dan Bates, to whom I gave it some years ago,” wrote Howard Pyle from his villa in Italy on August 10, 1911.

“Mrs. Dan Bates” was the former Bertha Corson Day (1875-1968), who was, as she herself put it, “an enthusiastic pupil of Howard Pyle” for several years, starting with his very first class at the Drexel Institute in 1894. In 1899 she attended the second Summer School of Illustration at Chadd’s Ford - where she was photographed with the class on her 24th birthday. In May 1902, Miss Day married Wilmingtonian Daniel Moore Bates, Jr. (1876-1953) - already part of Pyle’s social circle - and when their daughter, Bertha, was born, Anne Poole Pyle presented her with a baby blanket she had quilted and which her husband had designed. (Incidentally, Bertha Bates - later Mrs. J. Marshall Cole, - is the only person I ever met who had known Pyle, if only slightly: she was just 6 years old when he sailed for Europe. Still...)

“Margaret of Cortona” was a poem (reprinted below) by Edith Wharton, published in Harper’s Monthly for November 1901, and - so far - this “collaboration” is the only known solid link between them. They did have several acquaintances in common, however, most notably Theodore Roosevelt and William Crary Brownell of Charles Scribner’s Sons, who edited Pyle’s The Garden Behind the Moon and several of Wharton’s works.

Wharton’s poem, by the way, (not Pyle’s illustration) was condemned by the Catholic press because of its depiction of the future Saint. Dominicana: A Magazine of Catholic Literature, for instance, said, “This poetic (?) blasphemy and historical slander is an evidence of extremely bad taste, because it offends against the canons of fact and truthful record.” Harper’s Monthly even went so far as to print an apology for publishing it.

Margaret of Cortona
by Edith Wharton

Fra Paolo, since they say the end is near,
And you of all men have the gentlest eyes,
Most like our father Francis; since you know
How I have toiled and prayed and scourged and striven,
Mothered the orphan, waked beside the sick,
Gone empty that mine enemy might eat,
Given bread for stones in famine years, and channelled
With vigilant knees the pavement of this cell,
Till I constrained the Christ upon the wall
To bend His thorn-crowned Head in mute forgiveness...
Three times He bowed it...(but the whole stands writ,
Sealed with the Bishop’s signet, as you know),
Once for each person of the Blessed Three -
A miracle that the whole town attests,
The very babes thrust forward for my blessing,
And either parish plotting for my bones—
Since this you know: sit near and bear with me.

I have lain here, these many empty days
I thought to pack with Credos and Hail Marys
So close that not a fear should force the door -
But still, between the blessed syllables
That taper up like blazing angel heads,
Praise over praise, to the Unutterable,
Strange questions clutch me, thrusting fiery arms,
As though, athwart the close-meshed litanies,
My dead should pluck at me from hell, with eyes
Alive in their obliterated faces!...
I have tried the saints’ names and our blessed Mother’s
Fra Paolo, I have tried them o’er and o’er,
And like a blade bent backward at first thrust
They yield and fail me—and the questions stay.
And so I thought, into some human heart,
Pure, and yet foot-worn with the tread of sin,
If only I might creep for sanctuary,
It might be that those eyes would let me rest...

Fra Paolo, listen. How should I forget
The day I saw him first? (You know the one.)
I had been laughing in the market-place
With others like me, I the youngest there,
Jostling about a pack of mountebanks
Like flies on carrion (I the youngest there!),
Till darkness fell; and while the other girls
Turned this way, that way, as perdition beckoned,
I, wondering what the night would bring, half hoping:
If not, this once, a child’s sleep in my garret,
At least enough to buy that two-pronged coral
The others covet ‘gainst the evil eye,
Since, after all, one sees that I’m the youngest -
So, muttering my litany to hell
(The only prayer I knew that was not Latin),
Felt on my arm a touch as kind as yours,
And heard a voice as kind as yours say “Come.”
I turned and went; and from that day I never
Looked on the face of any other man.
So much is known; so much effaced; the sin
Cast like a plague-struck body to the sea,
Deep, deep into the unfathomable pardon -
(The Head bowed thrice, as the whole town attests).
What more, then? To what purpose? Bear with me! -

It seems that he, a stranger in the place,
First noted me that afternoon and wondered:
How grew so white a bud in such black slime,
And why not mine the hand to pluck it out?
Why, so Christ deals with souls, you cry - what then?
Not so! Not so! When Christ, the heavenly gardener,
Plucks flowers for Paradise (do I not know?),
He snaps the stem above the root, and presses
The ransomed soul between two convent walls,
A lifeless blossom in the Book of Life.
But when my lover gathered me, he lifted
Stem, root and all - ay, and the clinging mud -
And set me on his sill to spread and bloom
After the common way, take sun and rain,
And make a patch of brightness for the street,
Though raised above rough fingers—so you make
A weed a flower, and others, passing, think:
“Next ditch I cross, I’ll lift a root from it,
And dress my window”...and the blessing spreads.
Well, so I grew, with every root and tendril
Grappling the secret anchorage of his love,
And so we loved each other till he died....

Ah, that black night he left me, that dead dawn
I found him lying in the woods, alive
To gasp my name out and his life-blood with it,
As though the murderer’s knife had probed for me
In his hacked breast and found me in each wound...
Well, it was there Christ came to me, you know,
And led me home—just as that other led me.
(Just as that other? Father, bear with me!)
My lover’s death, they tell me, saved my soul,
And I have lived to be a light to men.
And gather sinners to the knees of grace.
All this, you say, the Bishop’s signet covers.
But stay! Suppose my lover had not died?
(At last my question! Father, help me face it.)
I say: Suppose my lover had not died -
Think you I ever would have left him living,
Even to be Christ’s blessed Margaret?
- We lived in sin? Why, to the sin I died to
That other was as Paradise, when God
Walks there at eventide, the air pure gold,
And angels treading all the grass to flowers!
He was my Christ—he led me out of hell -
He died to save me (so your casuists say!) -
Could Christ do more? Your Christ out-pity mine?
Why, yours but let the sinner bathe His feet;
Mine raised her to the level of his heart...
And then Christ’s way is saving, as man’s way
Is squandering - and the devil take the shards!
But this man kept for sacramental use
The cup that once had slaked a passing thirst;
This man declared: “The same clay serves to model
A devil or a saint; the scribe may stain
The same fair parchment with obscenities,
Or gild with benedictions; nay,” he cried,
“Because a satyr feasted in this wood,
And fouled the grasses with carousing foot,
Shall not a hermit build his chapel here
And cleanse the echoes with his litanies?
The sodden grasses spring again - why not
The trampled soul? Is man less merciful
Than nature, good more fugitive than grass?”
And so - if, after all, he had not died,
And suddenly that door should know his hand,
And with that voice as kind as yours he said:
“Come, Margaret, forth into the sun again,
Back to the life we fashioned with our hands
Out of old sins and follies, fragments scorned
Of more ambitious builders, yet by Love,
The patient architect, so shaped and fitted
That not a crevice let the winter in - ”
Think you my bones would not arise and walk,
This bruised body (as once the bruised soul)
Turn from the wonders of the seventh heaven
As from the antics of the market-place?
If this could be (as I so oft have dreamed),
I, who have known both loves, divine and human,
Think you I would not leave this Christ for that?

- I rave, you say? You start from me, Fra Paolo?
Go, then; your going leaves me not alone.
I marvel, rather, that I feared the question,
Since, now I name it, it draws near to me
With such dear reassurance in its eyes,
And takes your place beside me...

Nay, I tell you,
Fra Paolo, I have cried on all the saints -
If this be devil’s prompting, let them drown it
In Alleluias! Yet not one replies.
And, for the Christ there—is He silent too?
Your Christ? Poor father; you that have but one,
And that one silent - how I pity you!
He will not answer? Will not help you cast
The devil out? But hangs there on the wall,
Blind wood and bone - ?

How if I call on Him -
I, whom He talks with, as the town attests?
If ever prayer hath ravished me so high
That its wings failed and dropped me in Thy breast,
Christ, I adjure Thee! By that naked hour
Of innermost commixture, when my soul
Contained Thee as the paten holds the host,
Judge Thou alone between this priest and me;
Nay, rather, Lord, between my past and present,
Thy Margaret and that other’s - whose she is
By right of salvage - and whose call should follow!
Thine? Silent still. - Or his, who stooped to her,
And drew her to Thee by the bands of love?
Not Thine? Then his?

Ah, Christ—the thorn-crowned Head
Bends...bends again...down on your knees, Fra Paolo!
If his, then Thine!

Kneel, priest, for this is heaven...

A Nice Trade

“A Dream of Young Summer” by Howard Pyle (1901)

“As you know,” said Howard Pyle to the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in a letter of January 2, 1902, “I have always admired your work extremely - have always considered you as a representative of that steadfast and lofty effort toward an Art that cannot condescend to tricks and effects to catch the eye, but that speaks with a deeper intonation to the hearts and the souls of men.”

Saint-Gaudens seems to have felt much the same way about Pyle, and for several years the two had intended to exchange works. Finally, at the end of 1901, the sculptor sent a bronze cast of the “Head of Victory” - a “sketch” for the allegorical figure in his wonderful Sherman Monument.

“Head of Victory” by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Pyle received the piece on January 2. “I shall regard it as one of the treasures of my life,” he wrote the same day. “I care for it much more than I should for a more finished work; it is, as it were, a pure and noble thought from a large, and I am sure, a noble mind.” He also vowed to send “something in return that shall represent an earnest, even if an inarticulate effort of my Art.”

At last, on February 10, 1902 - after having trouble getting the 22 x 12" oil on canvas framed to his liking - Pyle shipped “A Dream of Young Summer”:

Now that it has been sent I feel horribly conscious that it is no adequate return for the beautiful “Victory” which I possess. The only thing that reconciles me to it is that it is sent with the most friendly good wishes in the world. Moreover, whatever its short-comings it is a sincere effort to express a thought.

“A Dream of Young Summer” wasn’t a custom-made piece, but something Pyle already had on hand: it had been published the previous year, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine for June 1901, accompanied by Edith M. Thomas’s poem of the same name (which may have been written for the picture, instead of the other way around - but I’ll explain myself in a later post, I hope).

The painting - which, by the way, Pyle and inscribed “To Augustus Saint Gaudens this Picture of Young Summer with the Fraternal Greetings of His Brother in Art” - eventually wound up in the hands of Pyle’s grandson, who presented it to the Brandywine River Museum, where you can see it today.

Unfortunately, I don’t know where Pyle’s particular copy of the “Head of Victory” is, but it was the topic of this news item in The Evening Journal of Wilmington in March 1904:

AN INTERESTING ART TREASURE

A great many people of Wilmington have doubtless seen the equestrian statue Sherman that stands in the Plaza at Fifth avenue in New York, for that work is not only local but national and it is, moreover, regarded by those who should know as being one of the five great equestrian statues of the world. Perhaps the finest part of the entire group is the figure of Victory and it is rather interesting to know that the study for the head, cast in bronze, is now in possession of an artist in Wilmington to whom it was given by Saint-Gaudens.

And Pyle’s student N. C. Wyeth mentioned it in a letter of October 29, 1905:

Mr. Pyle has gone to Chicago today to lecture, etc. Enclosed you will find a photo of him. The cast is a head St. Gaudin’s [sic] gave him. He had a photo taken of it so as to use it in an illustrated lecture in Chicago and Milwaukee. He considers the piece of sculpture (original study for the figure of “Victory” on the Sherman Statue, NY) a masterpiece.

Howard Pyle in Wisconsin

“I feel very much gratified indeed that my pictures should attract such favorable attention in Green Bay. They seem to have been a great deal cared for in the West and I do not think that they have anywhere met with a warmer reception then they have with you…”

—Howard Pyle to Deborah B. Martin, June 11, 1904

For those of you lucky enough to find yourselves in Wisconsin this winter, a major exhibit of Howard Pyle’s works will be on view from December 2, 2013, to February 7, 2014, at the Bush Art Center of St. Norbert College in De Pere, just outside of Green Bay.

On view will be some twenty-two original paintings that were acquired in the early 1900s by the Kellogg Public Library (later known as the Brown County Library), but which have since been purchased by the Green Bay and De Pere Antiquarian Society.

This is the largest collection of Pyle paintings west of the Mississippi - or the Susquehanna, for that matter. And the history of how it got there is interesting, if rocky, and involved lots of letter-writing, hand-wringing, and a lawsuit. But it ended well, since Pyle’s pictures illustrating Woodrow Wilson’s “Colonies and Nation” were kept almost all together as a set (a few from the series had been sold prior to their journey to Wisconsin in 1904) - as were those for his “Travels of the Soul.” (Pyle, by the way, made a special trip to Green Bay in 1905.)

So, go see the show! I only wish I could.

Howard Pyle’s Don Quixote

Many of Howard Pyle’s pictures are well-documented. Some, not so much. For example, correspondence concerning the creation of “The Fate of a Treasure Town” series of pirate paintings - among the most notable of Pyle’s later works - has yet to surface.

The same - or even less - can be said of Pyle’s sole known illustration of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. In fact, the only documentation that I’ve seen are its entries in the two Pyle bibliographies and a note in the Pyle scrapbook at the Delaware Art Museum stating - rather vaguely - that the original painting was sold in Philadelphia. When or to whom it was sold is not indicated and the original has yet to turn up, so we don’t know its size, its palette, or anything else. One day, maybe.

Until then, here is Howard Pyle’s “Don Quixote’s Encounter with the Windmill” as it appeared in the November 1901 issue of The Century Magazine, part of a special feature titled “Three Pictures of Don Quixote” (the other two were by Arthur I. Keller and André Castaigne). Engraver Frank H. Wellington sweetened the 7.6 x 5.0" duotone plate, which, unfortunately, was printed out of register.

Sahibs, Sikhs, Pathans, Boers, Kipling...and Pyle?

Howard Pyle’s “Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the spirit of Kurban Sahib” illustrated Rudyard Kipling’s short story, “A Sahib’s War,” in Collier’s Weekly for December 7, 1901.

The setting is South Africa during the Second Boer War (which was then in progress): “a tall young man deprived of understanding” is about to be hanged from a tree by two turbaned soldiers: Umr Singh, a Sikh, in the center, and Sikander Khan, a Pathan, on the right. But their efforts are thwarted by the ghost of a beloved British cavalry officer, Captain Corbyn (“Kurban Sahib”), recently killed in an ambush, who drifts toward them, saying, “No. It is a Sahib’s War.” A Boer woman is cowering on the ground with upraised “paroxysmal hands” (Singh and Khan sport them, too - common Pylean appendages).

The original for this has yet to turn up, so while I’m confident Pyle painted it in oil, I don’t know if it’s black and white, part color, or full color, or how large it is. The 9 x 10" halftone plate was retouched by an engraver, but it’s a pretty awful reproduction. Even so, its otherworldly weirdness and strength come through.

April 1, 1901: Woodrow Wilson to Howard Pyle

"Tory Refugees on their way to Canada" by Howard Pyle (1901)

Although the second collaboration of Howard Pyle and Woodrow Wilson was not as “intense” as the first (on “George Washington” in 1895-96), “Colonies and Nation” still generated a fair amount of correspondence. “It seems extremely pleasant to be writing to you again in collaboration of such interesting work,” Pyle wrote in the fall of 1900. “It was exceedingly pleasant to see your name on an envelope again,” concurred Wilson, and over the next six months at least a dozen letters (and certainly more than that, though they have yet to resurface) travelled between Wilmington and Princeton as the two hammered out what pictures would best suit the text. (Apparently, too, Wilson himself visited Pyle at his studio on the morning of December 7, 1900.)

“I remember in our work upon the History of the Life of Washington you specified your subjects and I upon my part after carefully reading the manuscript was allowed to give my ideas concerning them from the standpoint of an illustrator,” Pyle had reminded Wilson, not long after beginning his illustrations. That spring, while planning the last handful of pictures, Pyle asked if he could “amend” Wilson's list of subjects (which also hasn't yet surfaced) and paint “Washington refusing the offer to make him King” and a scene from Shays’ Rebellion as they “typify that period of Anarchy following the Revolutionary War so critical, apparently, to the life of the country.” Pyle also thought a depiction of Washington’s Inauguration would be appropriate. Here is Wilson’s answer, which shows the level of ease that had developed between the artist and writer:

**********

Princeton, New Jersey,

1 April, 1901.

My dear Mr. Pyle,

I literally have not had ten minutes to consider your letter of March twenty-eighth until this morning. I hope that you will pardon the delay.

I like two of the subjects you suggest very much indeed, but not the first. I should think it a little dangerous, historically, to make a scene out of Washington’s refusal to be made dictator. It was really an incident of correspondence. I should fear that, in making a picture of it, we should be in danger of putting in too large an imaginative element.

I had rather set my heart on having you do a group of emigrating loyalists in the northern forests, a subject that appeals greatly to the imagination; or one of your delightful character sketches of a rural group (this time on the western frontier) debating Jay's treaty.

The scene from Shays' rebellion and the inauguration of Washington I entirely like.

In haste,

With warm regard,

Sincerely Yours,

Woodrow Wilson

**********

In the end, Pyle did not paint Washington refusing to be made king, nor a scene from Shays’ Rebellion (though he had, indeed, depicted these two subjects in the 1880s), and his picture of the inauguration only appeared when Wilson’s papers were collected in book form. But his “Tory Refugees on their way to Canada” (above) and “A Political Discussion” appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine for December 1901.

And here is Wilson's original letter...

A Pyle Student's Letter Home, Part 2

A transcription of Henry J. Peck's letter to his family:

Wilmington, Delaware, Dec. 8. 1901

Dear Father + Mother, Sister + Brother:

Now of course it’s up to me to tell you all about it so here goes.

In the first place you doubtless want to know my impressions of Mr. Pyle.

I had pictured him as rather short or medium height, and imagine my surprise when he loomed up before me 6 ft. and 2 in. His head is not unlike my mental picture; being innocent of all hair except some (gray) on the back + over the ears.

He has a very strong and kindly face, + is extremely cordial, informal + simple in manner, + treats his pupils in more of a fatherly way than anything else.

The accomp. sketch gives some what the idea of the studios but very imperfectly. The one in the rear on the right is Mr. Pyle’s + has been built 19 years. The other was built at a cost of $8,000 a year or two ago for his pupils + has 3 large studios with fire-places. They are furnished by the pupils with old chairs, desks, clocks etc and are very nice indeed.

The front studio is occupied by [Samuel M.] Palmer, [Philip R.] Goodwin, [Francis] Newton + [Walter] Whitehead.

The middle one by Becker [Arthur E. Becher] + [William J.] Aylward (of Milwaukee) [Ernest J.] Cross (California), [Clifford W.] Ashley, [Gordon M.] McCouch (“McCooch”) + myself.

The rear studio Miss Ethel Franklin Betts and Dorothy Warren (13) have all to themselves.

Frank Schoonover, Stanley Arthurs + [James E.] McBurney have a studio down town where they do their illustrating work. They have been under Mr. Pyle + he of course is still interested in them + they go to the studios for sketch class, comp. etc.

I never before saw a collection of so many nice fellows. Even McCouch, altho’ he is young + sometimes obstreporous is very good-natured.

It seems funny to have to draw casts and it seems strange to draw heads + figures from imagination. No model, except for Sat. sketch class.

Mr. Pyle’s idea seems to be to stimulate the imagination. That is the principal thing.

However it is a little early in the game to say much about it.

The Composition Class meets tomorrow evening.

We get up to the studio about 8 or 8.15.

Mr. Pyle comes in + criticizes, the students following him around from one student’s work to another, so getting all the criticisms.

He comes in again about 12. He gives the students about 3 hrs. a day I should say. He has one model whom he uses for about everything, + has used him about 20 yrs. His name is [John] Weller.

A good many of Mr. Pyle’s drawings are hanging around on the walls.

Friday evening by invitation Ashley + I went up to Mr. Pyle’s house on Broom St. Large house, old furniture.

Mrs. Pyle is very nice indeed. Rather small than otherwise. Of little Pyles there are six. Miss Phebe, 14 and the oldest, Eleanor, Theodore, Howard, Wilfred + Godfrey. Miss Betts and Dorothy also live there. We had a very pleasant evening, popped corn, + looked at some old proofs of Mr. Pyle’s drawings.

Ashley + I occupy the top floor at 907 Adams St. My room tho’ rather small is all right. $6.00 per mo. Most of the fellows eat at Mrs. [Anna] Pyle’s (no relation to Howard) across the St. at 906. $4.00 week.

Very good grub. Living costs me about same as in Boston as I paid more for room + less for grub. Its good grub here + regular hours of course. A solemn colored boy named [James? Jonas?] waits upon us. There are 10 fellows at the table, all Mr. Pyle’s pupils but one.

I’m afraid Mr. [Eric] Pape would not approve of Mr. Pyle’s method of instructing without models. As I know how to draw comparatively well, if I can get hold of Mr. Pyle’s teachings it ought to be a good thing for me.

Wilmington I like very well indeed. It is an old town, built of brick with brick paved streets, which seem quite home-like. About 60000 people, 20000 of whom are colored so I hear. It is slightly hilly in parts + altogether has an air of an old southern town which is very pleasant to me.

I went to service at Trinity Church this morning, 2 blocks from here. A commodious stone church. Vested choir. Good sized congregation. Rev. Mr. Henry. He came running down + greeted me before I had been there a minute, took my address, + asked me to come right along to services. Also when I was going out a Warden called me by name + shook hands with me with pleasant remarks.

I understand there are 8 or 9 other Episcopal churches here.

It was rough on the Sound Tuesday night. The boat rolled + rolled, + groaned and creaked like anything. I had a state-room. In New York I visited with Keen + Harry Cole awhile. The latter is connected with a law office in the highest building in N.Y. or in the world I suppose (of its kind). We went up 26 stories to admire the view. [Peck may have been referring to the Park Row Building]

At the Household I learned that a check had been sent to Boston for me the night before.

I received it 2 days ago. I thought it was for the full am’t. imagine my disappointment when it proved to be $19.00 only. Glad to get that much though. I suppose I’ll get the rest some time. Also got a bill for taxes from Boston. I suppose I won’t have to do anything about that will I now that I do not live there any more.

I had to pay $5.00 for studio rent for Oct. and Nov. and will have to pay $5 a mo. from now on.

Has business begun to be rushing yet. I was in a crockery store last night and it made me think of old times.

How is Margaret progressing at school. Marion Bowen told me that Marg. played Basket Ball.

I had another letter from Grandma a couple of weeks ago.

Give my love to Lucie. How is she?

Good-bye

Henry

A Pyle Student’s Letter Home, Part 1

In early December 1901, a young artist named Henry Jarvis Peck arrived in Wilmington to study illustration under Howard Pyle.

Peck was born June 10, 1880, in Galesburg, Illinois, and grew up in Warren, Rhode Island. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and then the Eric Pape School of Art in Boston, where his classmates included Clifford W. Ashley, a cousin, who had also just joined Pyle's class; N. C. Wyeth, who came down the following fall; and Sidney Marsh Chase, who became a Pyle student in 1903 [actually, I’m not sure when!].

On Sunday, December 8, 1901, Peck wrote his first letter home and I am happy to be able to display it here. A complete transcription will follow in a new post.

The Chase of the Tide, 1901

When it comes to pictures, I am particularly fond of oblong compositions - especially oblong horizontal compositions. Is it from watching so many widescreen films? Is it something I’m genetically predisposed to, something I inherited from my father? It doesn’t matter. But here is an oblong Howard Pyle that has undeservedly slipped through the cracks - that is, unless you have the August 1901 issue of McClure’s Magazine handy. It’s an untitled illustration for “The Chase of the Tide” by Norman Duncan, and weighs in at a mere 5 x 1.7 inches. The printing isn’t great and the halftone (which shows the hand of an actual, human engraver, who has retouched the sky and bits of the boat) is murky, but the abstract wonderfulness of the picture shines through. As you see, words fail me.