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INVESTIGATING SOME PAINTING IDEAS

OF HOWARD PYLE VIA COLORIMETER


By Walt Morton
Howard Pyle (1853-1911) was a painting teacher with
an exemplary roster of students including N. C. Wyeth,
Frank Schoonover, Harvey Dunn, Philip R. Goodwin,
and Jessie Willcox Smith. The specifics of Pyles
teaching method comes to us in fragmentary form and
some of Pyles few recorded instructions are somewhat
inscrutable being in the language of the 1890s. So it
requires some inventive thinking to uncover what
Howard Pyle considered most important. This passage
of Pyles instruction is quoted from Andrew Loomis
(1892-1959) and in Pyles own words:
AS TO ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION
AS TO COLOR AND FORM...
Light: All objects of nature are made visible to the
sight by the light of the sun shining upon them. The
result is that by means of this we see the colors and
textures of the various objects of nature. From this it
may be seen that color and texture are the property
of light and that they do not enter the property of
shadow. For shadow is darkness and in darkness
there is neither form nor color. Hence form and color
belong distinctly to light.
Shadow: As the object illuminated by the sun is
more or less opaque, so when the light of the sun is
obscured by that object, the shadow which results is
more or less black and opaque, being illuminated only
by the light reflected into it by surrounding objects.
By virtue of shadow all objects of nature assume form
or shape, for if there were no shadow all would be a
flat glare of light, color and texture.
Hence, it would follow that the province of shadow
is to produce form and shape, and that in itself it
possesses no great power of conveying an impression
of color or texture. I have tried to state these two facts
because they are the foundation of all picture making:
for in the corresponding mimic separation of light and
dark, the mimic image of Nature is made manifest. So
the function of all art instruction should be to teach
the pupil to analyze and to separate the lights from
the darks, not technically but mentally. That which a
pupil most needs in the beginning is not a system of

Colorimeter test set-up:


In bright full sunlight, I use a sunshade to cover
half the colors. They now register as colors in full
shade but with ambient skylight giving them
limited partial illumination.

Home-brew colorimeter
Made from paint store samples glued to a board
here the board is in full sun, and you see its
identical chips laid out on each side.

The results
See how dramatically the colors shift in nature as
they move into shadow from full sun?
(This test could also be done with other kinds of
lighting such as home interior lighting.)

arbitrary rules and methods for imitating the shape of


an object; that which he needs to be taught is the habit
of analyzing lights and shadows and of representing
them accordingly.

So we know from Pyles words that he thought the


crux of a painting was how do you paint to show
color in light and how should you paint the shadows?
From Pyles student Harvey Dunn (1884-1952) we
know Pyle believed this should be practically executed
in a painting (at least at the outset) by setting up your
values consistent with the illumination in the scene
being painted and that three types of illumination were
paramount: colors in direct light, colors in shadow,
and full shadow (dark). This is a simplified threevalue system, but the idea becomes more complicated
when we study how to represent the same color as it
moves from light into shadow.
A simple colorimetry test helps us gain understanding.
A colorimeter is a tool that helps you see the color
in a particular lighting situation. Scientists and
photographers use them a lot. In my test on page
one, I made a board with paint chips attached. You
can see the colors in direct sun, and then I set up a
sunshade to cast half of the colors into full shadow
with only ambient skylight for fill illumination. I will
let the reader draw their own conclusions but some
surprising colors emerge when a familiar color goes
into shadow. Pyle was onto something in thinking
about the primacy of light, color, and shadow. This is
worth consideration by any painter representing light
mimicking physical reality.

Quick references:
Andrew Loomis, Creative Illustration
ISBN-10: 1845769287
Walt Reed, Harvey Dunn
ISBN-10: 1933865199

Simplified 3-value systems to represent illumination


can be invented with any colors on the palette.
In this simplified model a specific color is less
important, but what is important: what does the
value represent logically:

* (waltmorton@gmail.com)

color in full light


color in shadow with some partial illumination
no illumination at all in the scene (full dark)

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