Harold von Schmidt's illustrations for Death Comes for the Archbishop were greatly admired when they first appeared in 1927.
Von Schmidt was ideally suited to illustrate Willa Cather's tale of the southwestern desert. He grew up in that land, roughing it on cattle drives, wrangling horses and riding the buffalo trails. He got to know and love the desert by contemplating vast landscapes of clouds and rocks under an intense sun.
The desert, rather than the human characters, became the center of his big, bold illustrations for this book. This type of illustration is more than just a visual recital of the author's text. The term "Illustration" comes from the Latin lustrare, "to make bright, illuminate" and pictures like these are intended to achieve that by complementing the text, expanding and adding depth. After many centuries this remains one of the highest roles for illustration.
Von Schmidt chose to paint his pictures with black tempera on white board, ten times(!) larger than the final published image.
The potency of his illustrations was recognized and commented upon in arts magazines (which in those days paid close attention to important developments in the illustration world).
This is the first in a series of posts in which I plan to pay tribute to special books that aren't discussed much anymore but which I think were especially well illustrated.
21 comments:
Reading about artists like Von Schmidt reminds me how eventful many of their lives were before they ever put brush to canvas. Exploration, hardship, travel, physical work…all of it fed directly into the art. There’s a richness that comes from firsthand experience that’s difficult to replicate.
I don't think it's superior technology (its worse at doing the job), but rather the diminished human faculty caused by its use that will decrease the use of books (which is still thriving in many places). These are fabulous drawings, thanks.
Bill
The thing about reading a physical book is that you are aware of the space you are situated in as a continuation of the physicality of the pages you are holding, a communion between imagination and body. Technology increases our reach, but with every extension another step is taken further from what we are.
Von Schmidt was at the top of his game here; how to be blunt and graphic without sacrificing artistic integrity. Hard not to see the influence of these illustrations on realistic comic strip artists and the early comic book artists going forward. And then all comic book artists afterward. Although; how few could actually follow his lead? (Not for nothing did Alex Toth attend Von Schmidt's lectures at SI or the ASL in the 1950s. I wonder who else did.)
No researched evidence from my side, but the Sickles/Caniff school seems to have wisely quaffed from the heady brew of Von Schmidt's black and white mastery. The fact that he chose to create these at 10 X their published size in tempera (in what most probably assumed were pen/brush and ink renderings) speaks volumes about the dedication, craftsmanship and personal intimacy of detail the man imprinted upon his work.
Another superb entry for the ages, thanks David.
Great start to a new series; I’m looking forward to the next entry. One of the many benefits of your site is the introduction to illustrators some of us may never have heard of otherwise, along with the opportunity to seek out more of their work online. The comments, as always, are very helpful in that respect as well. I wonder which other illustrators readers think may have been influenced by Schmidt.
Man! I love these! Are the originals in your collection, David? Beautiful. Ordered the book!
Can definitely see where Caniff/Sickles came from here. Never occurred to me!
I can't wait to see what this series of posts brings.
I constantly bring books in for my students to see. I wax eloquent about the paper, the metal type, the smell, the interaction with the object. Some get it. Lots can't be bothered. Hard to pull them away from their phones.
Thanks for this!
"I wonder which other illustrators readers think may have been influenced by Schmidt."
Neal Adams said of Von Schmidt, "Now that guy will kick your ass!" A pretty good endorsement. Adams touted Von Schmidt to many at his Continuity Studios offices through the years.
They'll notice when words, passages and entire characters suddenly disappear from their e-copies, which is why books I take seriously are purchased in paper. But don't neglect in this context illustrators from the SF magazines. I keep a Gnome Press copy of Anderson & Dickson's "Earthman's Burden" purely for the Edd Cartier illustrations--not reproduced in later omnibus editions--and they're only a fraction of the work he did for the same short stories in magazines. There's Kelly Freas stuff in old Astoundings never reprinted anywhere, and I never took Jack Gaughan seriously until I saw his black and white interiors. As with von Schmidt, the less familiar the subject, the more a good illustrator brings to the story.
Thanks. Neal Adams one of the greats.
"John Severin" was my immediate reaction when seeing this. The style and execution isn't that similar, actually, but there's some connection.
Severin is very solid. And as he was a lifelong New Yorker, his western influence surely stemmed - somewhere down the line - from other artists who had actual experience out West (leaving aside Western Movies).
Death Comes for the Arch Bishop was sort of Von Schmidt's Masters Thesis for "graduating" from three years of Harvey Dunn's illustration classes in NYC. (There's a hint of woodblock printing bluntness to the style, which was in the air at the time.) Von Schmidt used a similar illustrative inking style throughout the 20s, 30s, and 1940s in the top magazines. What young illustrator wouldn't have seen his work?
I was thinking of the influence traveling from Von Schmidt to strip guys like Sickles, Caniff, and Roy Crane and then to the earliest 1940s comic guys who did blunt black ink rendering, like Joe Simon on Jack Kirby, Lee Elias, Jerry Robinson, Dan Spiegle, etc. Then in the 1950s Toth, Jack Davis, and Kurtzman's EC war books, which then includes Severin.
Movieac-- Agreed. I think a lot of that "first hand experience" in this case is just riding the range for weeks at a time and staring at endless stretches of desert. He wasn't watching his iphone or dictating ideas for the next podcast... just thinking long slow thoughts. Today we might view that as unproductive time, but it often seems to be fertile soil for mature drawings such as these.
Bill-- Yes, the use of books is still thriving in many places, but teacher friends tell me that books-- and literacy-- are a dwindling asset, as they become less and less relevant to prosperity and success.
chris bennett wrote: "Technology increases our reach, but with every extension another step is taken further from what we are."
Perhaps it takes us further from what we were. Perhaps what we "are" is evolving.
Kev Ferrara-- Excellent observation. In fact, those horizontal lines in the sky were Von Schmidt's way of simulating an old timey woodblock effect for the book. You're right about his long career and the artists he influenced. Von Schmidt himself was mentored by Maynard Dixon for free. He recalled, “Once, I said to Maynard Dixon, who did so much for me, ‘Maynard, I’ll probably never have any money. How can I repay you?’ Dixon answered, ‘You can paint fine pictures and pass the word along.’”
Vanderwolff-- Thanks, yes Sickles would seem to be another artist who not only learned from Von Schmidt but who put the lessons to good use.
George Pratt-- You're going to love that book, I guarantee you. 60+ illustrations, far more than I could include here. There were many reprints, including some later, more compact versions that lost the charm of the original early printings. Those early editions felt like they were a piece of the desert-- sandy colored and textured with a timeless feel.
Robert Piepenbrink-- Like you, I purchase in paper books that I take seriously but my appreciation is tinged by the fact that paper is mortal and these works will eventually crumble. That goes double for your science fiction magazines, pulps and comic books. You can almost hear them disintegrating on the shelf at night.
Movieac and Kev Ferrara-- Ah yes, Neal Adams. Before he became a celebrity artist and spent too much time doing repetitive drawings of superheroes with clenched teeth and hunched shoulders, he did decades of stunningly beautiful work. He's long overdue for showing off on this blog. I think I'll do him next.
That would be great.
Interesting to learn that the way he was treated at Archie Comics almost caused him to give up on comics altogether.
“Once, I said to Maynard Dixon, who did so much for me, ‘Maynard, I’ll probably never have any money. How can I repay you?’ Dixon answered, ‘You can paint fine pictures and pass the word along.’”
I love that spirit. Dunn taught for free. Pyle taught for free. Everybody was spreading the pictorial gospel then.
Interestingly; Maynard Dixon, Herbert Dunton, and Charles Russell met Pyle student Phillip R. Goodwin in New York in 1904 where they all became lifelong art and travel pals. It is widely acknowledged that Goodwin helped Russell with his color, but I would guess Pyle's influence also reached through Goodwin to Dixon and Dunton as well. Dunton's early illustration style after 1904 is powerfully reminiscent of Wyeth and Dunn. His work looks even more like a Pyle student's than Goodwin's. Which leads me to believe that he may have attended Pyle's Art Students League lectures at that time (which stretched through 1904 and 1905) as well as palling around and learning from Goodwin. (Pyle taught a great many students at the ASL in NYC but there were no records kept of who attended. So his influence on art and illustration is actually even more extensive than even the books say.)
I must assume Dixon was also involved in the exchange of information among pardners. As his illustration work from the same period looks remarkably like that of other Pyle students (George Harding, Douglas Duer, Henry Townsend, etc.)
Which is to say, Von Schmidt may have been heavily influenced by Pyle before he ever got to Dunn.
From my reading and personal experience, I’ve found that many talented, secure artists are more than willing to share their knowledge with newcomers. When I was a teenager many years ago, and of modest means, I was lucky enough to join an organization that offered free drawing classes. Every so often, professional illustrators would come in to teach us.
I can’t remember their names, but I do remember visiting the Manhattan studio of Willis Pyle, who was more than happy to show us the animation projects he was working on. His kindness and encouragement are something I still remember fondly after all these years.
David, please do not think my phrase "a fool's hope" is calling you a fool. Quite the contrary!
'will eventually crumble'
Doesn't digital storage have a projected lifespan only slightly longer than paper?
Thanks a lot for sharing these images. I knew some of them from one of the books dedicated to his work but it’s so important to see originals. About the young people and the books : in France, in fantasy litterature, there is a return of luxurious books, and some with illustrations. And the success with books/magazines sold through crowfunding is a reality. It’s like in the 1930’s in France, people with some money buying an object before a book. It’s like vinyl.
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