“Myles, as in a dream, kneeled, and presented the letter”

“Myles, as in a dream, kneeled, and presented the letter” illustrates the following passage from the second installment of Howard Pyle’s novel Men of Iron in Harper's Young People for January 27, 1891:

[The Earl of Mackworth] was a tall man, taller even than Myles’s father. He had a thin face, deep-set bushy eyebrows, and a hawk nose. His upper lip was clean shaven, but from his chin a flowing beard of iron-gray hung nearly to his waist. He was clad in a riding-gown of black velvet that hung a little lower than the knee, trimmed with otter fur and embroidered with silver goshawks - the crest of the family of Beaumont.

A light shirt of link mail showed beneath the gown as he walked, and a pair of soft undressed leather riding-boots were laced as high as the knee, protecting his scarlet hose from mud and dirt. Over his shoulders he wore a collar of enamelled gold, from which hung a magnificent jewelled pendant, and upon his fist he carried a beautiful Iceland falcon.

As Myles stood staring, he suddenly heard Gascoyne’s voice whisper in his ear, “Yon is my Lord; go forward and give him thy letter.”

Scarcely knowing what he did, he walked towards the Earl like a machine, his heart pounding within him and a great humming in his ears. As he drew near, the nobleman stopped for a moment and stared at him, and Myles, as in a dream, kneeled, and presented the letter.

Pyle’s devoted student Thornton Oakley bought the original black and white oil painting (7.75 x 10.5" - done in Summer or Fall of 1890) from Herb Roth for $42.00! It now lives at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

This one - like a few others from the novel - makes me ache. Is it the almost photographic “presence”? The deceptively simple composition? The grouping of figures, tones, textures? Pyle is lauded for his scenes of dramatic action, but time and again I’m more affected by his scenes of dramatic inaction.

Walt Whitman on Howard Pyle

The Flight from Falworth Castle (Harper’s Young People, January 20, 1891)

“I know nothing about the story: do you? No? Well, the picture is very impressive, has too, that indefinable charm of mystery - of half hinting, half inviting inquiry, yet giving nothing. There are things in nature have this same power to attract - to overawe, yet withold particulars. These fellows go ahead more and more. These certainly are better than the Century’s even, which are fine enough. This democratization of art keeps up a quick pace.”

Walt Whitman in conversation with Horace Traubel, January 21, 1891, while looking at a copy of Harper's Young People, which featured an installment of Howard Pyle’s serialized novel for children, Men of Iron.

Men of Iron Halftone, 1891

As a footnote to my post about Howard Pyle’s black and white oil painting for Men of Iron, I present the illustration as it appeared in Harper’s Young People for March 17, 1891. The 8 x 10.5" original has been reduced to 4.8 x 6.3" and it’s not the worst reproduction - especially for something mass-produced, ephemeral, and made so early in halftone’s history - but a grey mist has crept into the room and subtleties have been lost. Still, it’s good to remember that Pyle’s reputation was made, to a large degree, on mediocre reproductions like this.

Howard Pyle in Black and White, November 1890

In my last post I referred to the warmth and “color” of Pyle’s black and white paintings. Here is an example of what I mean: one of 21 illustrations Pyle made for his classic children’s novel Men of Iron. It’s tongue-twistingly titled “‘Belike thou sought to take this lad’s life,’ said Sir James” and shows the brash hero, Myles Falworth, being upbraided for brawling by the stern, one-eyed Sir James Lee, in the latter‘s “bare” and “cheerless” office.

Pyle probably began writing Men of Iron in 1889 as the earliest mention of it that I’ve been able to find is in a letter of January 12, 1890. A few weeks later, on January 28, he wrote to a friend:

...I am in the midst of a book which I am elaborating with all the powers which I can bring to bear upon it. I want to make it a landmark in my life’s work and I really am inclined to think that it will be so. It is the story of the development (au natural) of a Mediæval boy into a young man and I view his life not from the outside as I did with Otto [of the Silver Hand] but from the inside.

That spring, Pyle offered the novel to Harper and Brothers, who readily accepted it on Pyle’s own terms: $1000 for serial use in Harper's Young People and a $500 advance on book royalties. He cut Harper a special deal on the illustrations: $50 for each - half his going rate.

Pyle started the illustrations in the fall of 1890 and most likely finished this particular one in the middle of November. His correspondence hints that he worked at a breakneck pace: he sent two paintings to the publisher on December 2 and two more on December 7! And although Harper's Young People reproduced the illustrations in a variety of sizes, I think Pyle did all of them on uniform pieces of canvas board measuring about 8 x 10.5 inches. The underpainting appears to be raw or burnt umber; I gather Pyle would have found raw sienna too yellow and burnt sienna too red for his purposes.

There’s not much to this one, but I’ve always loved this type of Pyle’s work: strong composition, quiet tension, assured drawing, great chiaroscuro, vigorous brushwork. Look at the slight shine on Sir James’s velvet robes - the calligraphic handling of the stone floor - the glint of light on Myles’s gorget, as he leans, cocky, yet exhausted, on the table. It may not be as overtly exciting as his action-packed pieces, but it’s Pyle at his subtle best.