Customer Reviews

Pirates, Patriots, and Princesses: The Art of Howard Pyle (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

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Howard Pyle is, perhaps, the dean of American illustrators, up there with the great N. C. Wyeth and Charles Dana Gibson as the progenitors of what we now have come to think of as illustration in America. The visions we see in our collective imaginations of knights on gleaming chargers, dastardly pirates, and other such images truly began with Pyle's brush. "Pirates, Patriots, and Princesses" (hereafter referred to as PP&P) is a nice, if slim, volume of Pyle's art, but might not be the single best one to get.

Within PP&P you'll find a number of wonderful paintings, from Pyle's famed illustration of Blackbeard's demise, to the mournful "Marooned," and others that you will doubtless be looking for. This book focuses on his paintings of pirates, the American Revolution, and various chivalry/mythology-related works. It's very nice to have an inexpensive volume of Pyle's work available, and the book is printed on good quality paper. What troubles me about the book is, first, that some of the works are in black and white (not many, but enough to be perturbing) and printed far too small to be truly appreciated. For instance, my personal favorite, "Marooned," is printed much smaller than a postcard and is somewhat disappointing. Dover might have done better to give the paintings a single page treatment apiece. As it is, this is really just a minor introduction to Pyle, rather than a standard work. For those looking to begin an interest in Pyle, Wyeth, and others, this is a good place to start, but you may want to look at other books as well.

Howard Pyle was a brilliant artist, and although he did do quite a bit of black-and-white work in his career, he is remembered primarily as a painter. So why is the work presented in this volume so washed-out? The colour seems bled from every image, even his iconic and vibrantly blue "Taking of a Spanish Galleon". Flat and dull. Pyle deserves better.

I own other Dover art books, and they are wonderful books, but the content of this one was a bit disappointing to me. I was really hoping for more pirate pieces. The famous cover used on Treasure Island is not even included. These seemed to be more obscure pieces that I had never seen before. I don't know, if you're a huge Pyle fan, then you might really enjoy it, but if you are looking for his art that you've seen printed in countless pirate books like me...this is not going to impress you much.

This is a nice little colection of Pyle's work. Contrary to another review, every page except one has only a single image. As far as black and white reproducutions, most of those are pen drawings or grisailles which, of course, are supposed to be black and white. (the grisaille actually IS printed in color.) Among the 67 plates there is one pen drawing and one grisaille. There is also one very small painting that was reproduced in black and white as a reference. (This is also the lone page that has 2 images.) A few of these images, including the cover, look like they were originally grisailles over which a transparent layer of color has been added. These are, in my opinion, the weakest images - I think there were much better choices for the cover.
There are a few problems with the book. First, it has very generous margins. Usually about an inch to 2 inches on all sides, so there is a fair amount of white space. This is for the portait format works. The landscape formats suffer much more because dover, like alot of publishers, has refused to print them in such a way that their natural dimensions require, instead squeezing them into the vertical portrait format. There are only 8 landscapes though. Secondly, the reproduction quality is economy, as you would expect from a book of this price. Still, I think it is a good value if you like Pyle, as it is hard to find alot of this work elsewhere. If you want better reproductions, I recommend Wondrous Strange the Wyeth Tradition. It has 30 very nice full page reproductions of Pyle's work including a 2 page spread of marooned. Also includes paintings from nc, andrew, and jamie wyeth.

Howard Pyle was not only the father of American illustration but he was also a gifted writer and teacher. Many great American illustrators and painters such as N.C. Wyeth, Frank Schnoover, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Maxfield Parish and Allen True were students at the private school Pyle established at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. There can be no doubt Pyle had a great influence on American art during the Twentieth Century.

There is a real need for a detailed study of Howard Pyle's life and work. Unfortunately, "Pirates, Patriots and Princesses" does not fulfill this need. Dover Publishing has done the world a great service with many of the low cost books they have published over the years. However, they should keep away from art books. The paper in this book is cheap and the quality of the reproductions is poor. While Pyle's images are compelling, the poor quality of the printing will only dissapoint. One day, someone will produce a coffee table book of Howard Pyle's work and it will be a success. His illustrations are just too compelling to relegated to an obscure Dover Publishing title.

This book that includes good quality print of original works by Howard Pyle, the founder of the Brandywine School, shows how strongly impressed he was by Romantic painters, when he studied art in Paris. A must for illustrators.

This book brings to you the blend of the fantasy life of its title: Pirates, Patriots and Princesses with the outstanding artwork of the master Howard Pyle. He brings to you such action and grace with great brush strokes that come alive - even after printing into a book! Can't get much better than this!