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
I could paint a picture of the smoke, the thunder, the roar
of the battle, the bareheaded, wounded, and shattered
columns of British advancing, the trampled grass, the smoke
of the burning houses, and over beyond all the quaint town
reposing silently and peacefully in the afternoon sunlight.
The image is very clear in my own mind, and if I could
materialize it upon canvas I think I might be able to show
the sunlight, the heat and the desperate human earnestness
of the grim red-coated heroes marching up that hill to
their death.
"I doubt whether I could paint 'Massachusetts, Crowned
with Plenty,' or 'Massachusetts Standing a Bulwark for
Freedom against Tyranny.' I do not know whether I could
paint a decorative subject in tones of blue and silver or blue
and gray, but I am very sure I should not venture to make
the attempt. Whether or not the one subj ect is Art and
the other subj ect is not Art seems, to me to be a question
that is almost parochial in its limitations, but if the good
people of Massachusetts prefer the one to the other and if
they choose to say that that which illuminates their walls
shall be of the one sort and shall further say that the other
sort is not truly Art, I must be prepared to submit to their
dictum in so far as their walls are concerned.
"I write thus to you in full because I very much question
whether it would be worth your while to trouble yourself
any further in the matter. I think I may Say that I am
as well qualified to, paint such a picture as any man in the
United States, but that is altogether apart from the quest-ion.
"When a man is as old as I he must stand or fall by his
opinions, and I do not think there is a foothold for me in
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