Howard Pyle, a chronicle by Charles D. Abbott, with an introduction by N. C. Wyeth and many illustrations from Howard Pyle's works.

HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE
paint a picture of a man running away from his enemies
along the shores of a sea, with a gray sky overhead, and
a strong wind blowing over the landscape. You see, he
could not pose a model 'in the required position, for not
only could no model hold such a position as that of a man
running, with a center of gravity projected far beyond the
point of impact; but even if the model were suspended in
the air in such a position, yet he would not convey the idea
of running. Apart from this it would be very difficult to
find exactly the seascape to fit the picture, and exactly the
landscape. For all this, the man must draw, not upon the
facts of nature, but upon his imagination.
"If I have expressed myself at all clearly, you will see
that what a man needs to paint an imaginative picture of
such a sort, is not the power of imitation, but. the knowledge
to draw a figure from imagination.,
To W. M. R. French.
"July 17, 1905.
For after all, a man is not an artist by virtue of
clever technique or brilliant methods: he is fundamentally
an artist in the degree that he is able to sense and appreciate
the significance of life that surrounds him, and to express
that significance to the minds of others.
"No man can impart that divine gift to another, but he
may encourage its growth instead of stifling it by a hard
incrustation of academic methods.
"I wish with all my soul that our American art schools
would awake to this vital fact, and not say, as is sometimes
said, that 'such a method of teaching is all very well for
illustrating, but it does not apply to painting.' I marvel that
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