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

ITALY AND THE END
markable that I do not see how any human being painted as
they did. You stand among them and you feel that you are
surrounded by a glow of soft warm ardent colors in which
the yellows and the browns are the predominant tone and
the wonderful blues and crimsons, are the relieving note.
Two pictures of Botticelli I saw yesterday are the most remarkable pieces of color work that I have ever seen in my
life. One of them in particular, a rich, dark gray with a
crimson tone is so remarkable a piece of color that I do not
think of anything to parallel it. All the time I was there,
I kept thinking of my pupils and wishing that they could
see these pictures. It would be such a great and splendid
lesson to them for all their future color work.
cc"0.The architecture I do not think very much of.
The churches are all of variegated marble, mosaiced in odd
forms, so that you lose the very semblance and the purity
of the architectural design-if there is any such design. The
palaces all look like prisons. The courts inside seem to be
very fine (carved pillars, and so on) but on the whole they
are a disappointment to me. The plain houses and streets,
however, are very interestingý-very winding and intricate,
with an occasional arch overhead, connecting one house with
another, and a great turmoil and bustle in the street below.
"I think on the whole I am getting to like Florence better
and better the longer I stay here, but it will never take the
place of America. We, in our new country, look to the
future; these people look to the past, and are satisfied with
it. We experiment in color, and in so experimenting, get
all sorts of oddities and peculiarities-they are satisfied with
what men did three or four centuries ago. With us everything is clean and pure and well kept, in Italy they are
[ 243 1