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Howard Pyle,
considered the Father of American Illustration, experimented with many
techniques in using his pen, altering the style to fit the story.
Although his earliest work was done in silhouette, when he drew
children’s stories his work could be light and airy. His most famous pen
and ink images were for the books that he authored about Robin Hood and
the Arthurian legends. Here, he chose a style reminiscent of the
Renaissance engravings of Albrecht Durer—as in The Wonder Clock—that reflected the period of the story. Throughout these drawings,
Pyle’s use of outline was vigorous and supple, supported by a minimum of
shading. His strong compositions were enriched with areas of texture and
ornament yet simple in structure to perfectly complement the text. [9]
Joseph Pennell was a
pictorial reporter interested chiefly in architectural subjects. He
created light and shadow through delicately applied lines suggesting a
style reminiscent of impressionism, yet at the same time painted an
extremely accurate picture of his subject. In The Garden of Lindaraxa the suggestion of the line gave the impression of sunlight
dappling the leaves in a light breeze. His use of texture, white space
and deep shadows created a sense of movement and stillness at the same
time.
Will Crawford at times
omitted the use of outline altogether and created texture and shadow
through an intricate application of small dots and squiggles. In his
drawing, Bad Luck Pieces, he varied the weight of the line
to pull his characters out of the background. Crawford used the lack of
a conventional outline along with changing line weight to capture the
effects of light and shadow and to draw the eye to the focus of the
story.
One of the most
prestigious decorative illustrators of the teens and twenties was
Franklin Booth. His mechanically precise style was entirely self-taught,
the result of laboriously copying the steel and wood engravings he found
in magazines and books with his pen. His drawings were very much in
demand during the time when decorative pen work, including elaborate
borders and hand lettering, was used to embellish magazines and books
and to add distinction to advertising campaigns. Another element in
Booth’s success was the use of balance in his compositions. In
The
Supplicants Booth used a soaring central image combined with
a highly decorative border which highlighted the text within the
drawing. He had a keen sense of the interrelationship of each line in
the drawing. His approach was that of a painter and, in effect, showed
pen and ink to be a medium virtually without restriction. [10]
Pen and ink artists
often used the heaviness or lightness of the line to express or
underscore the atmosphere or emotion of a story. Illustrators
traditionally applied techniques of cross-hatching and stipple to create
variations of light and shadow. But the weight of a line could also
carry meaning. Emotional subtext within a story was physically expressed
through the lightness or heaviness of the line.
James Montgomery Flagg
utilized the brush and pen equally in his work, allowing the line to
become broad and heavy in order to carry the underlying sentiment of the
drawing to the reader. In Home from the War it was through
the heaviness of the line that we saw the exhaustion of war in the weary
posture of Flagg’s well-known figure of Uncle Sam. In the Harrison Cady
drawing, Old Home in the City, the whimsy of memory and
nostalgia for the past was clearly evident. The lightness of the line,
although complex in its application, allowed a sense of sentimentality
and humor to carry through the piece to the viewer. J. C. Coll, in his
drawing for The Fire-Tongue, combined heavy lines, dark
stipple and crosshatching to evoke foreboding and to underscore the
intrigue in the story. His use of the crosshatching and shadow to create
atmosphere in his drawings made his work appropriate for the adventure
and mystery stories popular with the magazine readers of the day.
Finally, these artists
were able to create liveliness in their drawings through the natural
movement of their pens. The fluidity of line combined with shadow gave
the impression of action in a drawing. Although the moment of the
activity was frozen, our mind’s eye finished the action. Continued
motion was implied in each drawing and each artist employed a different
technical solution to help the viewer see it.
The two J.C. Coll
fight pictures, The Diver’s, and
Nayland Smith,
accomplished this by carrying the gestures right up to the final blow. Coll exercised his pen point more like a paintbrush in these drawings
combining black shadows with the white areas of the paper, thereby
giving the eye a full spectrum of values and creating movement. In Rose
O’Neill’s drawing, Mother Playing with Children, she used a
flowing line with broad shadows to create the sense of motion. We are
almost able to hear the screams of delight from the children as they are
chased with the capture left to our imagination. There was an emotional
character to her drawing that allowed the viewers to supplement the
drawing with their own memories and complete the action of the picture.
The images in this
exhibition date from 1887 to 1933 and vary in style, subject and
purpose. We see humor, a reflection of social trends and mores, as well
as the telling of a good story in each of the drawings. As magazine,
book and advertising illustrations these works are masterful examples of
the breadth and depth of sentimentality that can be reached by means of
line and shadow. They are a record of the gestures and personalities of
the artists who made them and the world that influenced the artists. We
respond to them both as works of art and as images that complement and
dramatize the printed message they convey. If, the line is a record of a
gesture and the focus of the drawing, then it is through these elegant
lines that we come to know these preeminent artists and the society they
recorded.
Elizabeth Marecki Alberding
Collections Manager
The Kelly Collection of American Illustration
| [9] Walt and Roger
Reed, "Learning from Masters of the Past," (Step-By-Step
Graphics 3(4): May/June, 1987), p. 78. |
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[10] Frederic Taraba, "Painter with a Pen," (Step-By-Step Graphics 11(6);
November/December, 1995), p. 123. |
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