In the winter of 1876, frustrated by his lack of success, Howard Pyle nearly abandoned his career as an illustrator. Instead, his early setbacks drove him to a profound study of the nature of illustration and picture-making, and to develop his own philosophy for composing powerful narrative pictures.
Fundamental to Pyle's success as both an artist and a teacher was his emphasis on composition. We will look at how Pyle developed his own ideas for creating narrative pictures, and refined them into principles that could be succinctly taught and successfully employed across a wide variety of subjects, mediums, and styles. These ideas were further developed by his own students, such as N.C. Wyeth, Jesse Wilcox Smith, William Aylward, and especially Harvey Dunn, who would teach them to a second generation of astounding illustrators, including Saul Tepper, Mead Schaeffer, and Dean Cornwell.
The Lecture includes footage of Dean Cornwell creating one of his famous illustrations, shot by legendary artist & teacher Frank Reilly. Reilly would subsequently refine and develop his own approach, the Reilly Method, and produce his own remarkable group of students and painters, including James Bama, Clark Hulings, Robert Maguire, and Fred Fixler.
Along the way, we will survey and discuss emerging and competing compositional ideas. We will look at how compositional decisions are fundamental not only to making effective pictures, but also to developing a powerful personal pictoral expression. Ultimately, we will arrive at the understanding that composition is not simply the abstract design, or the initial sketch. In an effective narrative picture, everything from the first thought to the final stroke is a compositional decision.