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

-MURAL DECORATION
count very much upon it, but still as it was an opportunity
that afforded the opening of a very small crack of chance,
I did not think it well to allow it to pass by without developing it to the fullest. I do not count very much upon
the matter. I have very good art friends in Boston, but
upon the whole I do not feel that the Boston people are in
sympathy with the Art which I represent. Your Museum,
for instance, debars from its walls all pictures that are of
an historic nature, limiting itself to such others as appear
to me to represent that which is purely technical or that
which is simply ornate. To my mind the tendency of
Modern Art is of another sort. It seems to me that Art
through the past has tended to develop into that which
is more widely humane than simple decorative art can
represent, and it is toward this end that my work has been
directed.
"I do not feel that your people agree with me in this,
nor do I think that the art opinion throughout the country
entirely agrees with me. There are many who coincide
with such an opinion but they are still in the minority, and
I think the large majority in Boston are opposed to such
a view. In this of course they may be right and I may be
wrong-it is entirely a matter of opinion, but, at the same
time, as I have my opinion I must stand with it and fall
with it, and in this case I do not think that there is the
slightest possibility -of the art authorities of Massachusetts
desiring my work in their House of Representatives.
"As Governor Walcott writes, the space upon the walls
of the House of Representatives is proposed to be filled by
a decorative or allegorical subject and not by historical subjects. I think I could paint a Battle of Bunker Hill; I think
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