Of the first impressions a viewer of Harvey Dunn's work is likely to get are solid structure, great strength,  firm conviction, and power.

If you were  lucky enough to meet him personally, you would most likely feel those same qualities. Most artists are not particularly awesome nor physically powerful, so meeting Harvey Dunn could be a bit overwhelming.

He was a big man, a great picture maker, and an equally impressive teacher. In all probability, the three most inspirational teachers of art in America were Howard Pyle, Robert Henri, and Harvey Dunn.

Born in Manchester, South Dakota in 1884, Dunn grew up on the prairies, where buffalo bones were plowed under.  His father's method of hiring a new hand for his farm was to see if the probationer could keep up with "the kid". A working game called bushing involved lugging countless sacks of grain from one place to another.  Dunn is said to have bushed the competition by continuing to remain fresh  while most sought the shade of a bush for rest.  His strength was prodigious.  It is said he found the most convenient way to extricate an automobile from a tight street was to pick up one end and walk it around.  He is said to have launched a power boat by lifting it up and heaving it into the water.

These tales and many more might prepare one for meeting a  solidly built man, well over six feet in height whose imposing being was reinforced by a deep voice and a shrewd calculating glance.

He had great understanding, tolerance, and a quality of gentleness which might be a bit surprising since there was always the inkling of another Dunn just beneath the surface.

Once when criticizing a painting that Jess Schliker had done of a bar room brawl which seemed to lack conviction, Dunn said "I could take a 42" canvas stretcher and take on that whole crowd single-handed!"  None of us doubted his ability to do it, but we also understood and valued his criticism.

Dunn said "it takes a lot to beat me, but unless you are willing to be beaten by a picture and do it the picture's way rather than your way, you will not be successful."  At one point in his career, he found himself on the floor among his brushes, having passed out from exhaustion.  This incident may lend believability to his statement, "picture making is the hardest work I've ever done."

He was capable of great compassion, and had the gentleness of a  great man.  He painted a picture of subtle tonality and lyrical beauty for Steinway & Sons showing the medieval lovers, Tristan and IsoldeReflecting the sweep of  the music, all parts seem to swirl and move in harmony with their individual love.  Only Tristan's sword seems to be a vertical stabilizing force.

Once when as a student in his class, I was attempting to achieve a similar flowing mood -- musical, lyrical, non-factual or dream-like.  Dunn said "Paint something ordinary or substantive in your picture -- perhaps a chair rail constructed as a good carpenter would build it.  Then your audience seeing that bit of solid substance will accept your fantasy."
Dunn said that mathematicians and scientists generally who have thought deeply on their work have eventually encountered a point beyond which they cannot proceed. "Call it force, power, or what you will, a noted scientist has declared that when the end of physics is reached, religion will be found."

The artist, like the scientist, sooner or later comes to the place where material possibilities of his craft are exhausted.  He then recognizes there is something greater than his paint.  This is true if he realizes the importance of his art  and approaches it with sufficient humility.  He recognizes this "something" as the idea behind his picture.  This idea, in the artistic sense, is as much an entity as himself -- it comes down through the ages from infinite truth.  It has always been, and always will be.  This spirit of the picture is the heart of it.  It must be held fast and grasped.  The only way it can be done is the picture's way."

Ideas -- true today as always, are active intelligent things which present themselves to your consciousness for expression.  You can be receptive but can only express them as they will be expressed.  Ideas are finicky things and will not run in double harness with human opinion.  The question is not how will I express this idea, but how does this idea wish to be expressed?" Happy is the man who is possessed by an idea, for only he can know the glorious sense of uplifting activity which the idea induces."

Regarding the statement of someone who had ideas but was afraid to try to produce them feeling that he did not have the ability, Dunn said "give your ideas credit for some intelligence.  They will not present themselves to an intellect incapable of executing them.  If you get an idea, you can do it."

1. The Idea
First, the idea must be pictorial rather than literary.  The fundamental elements essential to it are graphic in nature.  These elements are line, masses, color,  and space division.

2. The Pictorial Concept
The pictorial concept comes next. The actual holding in the mind's eye of a concept, pictorial in nature.  It has a definite character, force, or direction; a point of view) But most  of its specifics will be worked out in execution.
At this state, detail is unlikely to be present -- a directing force, spiritor character is likely to be present.

3. The Sketch
Then a note or sketch is made as complete as its purpose permits it to be.  Its purpose is to indicate (as on a map) the direction in which you are to proceed to achieve the pictorial result crystallized in your mind.  You don't crystallize it on paper.  This note or sketch makes clear to you (and possibly no one else) the direction and intent of  your pictorial concept.  The sparseness of these notes by Harvey Dunn and by Howard Pyle never cease to amaze others.

4. The Picture
Make an immediate statement of a significant part of your concept in three values. This should be such a true relationship that you would be willing to take your oath on them. Then relate everything else in your picture to that first statement.  Draw with your shadows, conform to the laws of light -- everything that can be thought of as technical must conform to the original statement, which derives from the idea or the pictorial concept.

The pictorial  concept dictates all. Any portion of the picture conforming to natural phenomena is done only to clarify the pictorial concept; never for its own sake, or to show off" the artists rendering skill. Distortion, exaggeration, or emphasis may be needed to clarify the concept.  The purpose is to present the pictorial idea in the simplest and most effective manner.  Distortion is not introduced for its own sake any more than detail is.. The test to be constantly applied is: "does this advance my idea to its natural pictorial conclusion?"  we observe, good pictures all have abstract pattern and disposition of dark and light forms -- the dynamic forces that shape and characterize the picture.  (How much these were consciously handled by Harvey Dunn I cannot say.)

In his teaching Dunn was more concerned with the essential spirit of the work than technical procedures. "...he never taught what kind of brushes or paint to use. It was merely whether the result had anything in common with the excitement of human existence"

Technical parts were considered only to the degree necessary to put them in proper relation to the underlying concept.  Dunn said: The instant you permit yourself to be overly concerned with technical detail, the picture disappears from under your brush while while you are painting it."  This very disheartening experience is all too common.

Dunn was so fundamentally an artist that he did not concern himself with the manipulation of technical elements so dear to the heart of many, and of the conversations of most artists.

"The only way to accomplish anything is to be yourself approaching life from your particular angle. If there is anything worthwhile in you, it will come forth.  But if you insist on looking at life through the eyes of others, you must realize you are subject to their limitations as well as your own."

Other illustrators, art directors, and painters quote by Dean Cornwell to Ernest Watson sensed that Dunn had the spark that they lacked. Donald Lynch (once monitor of the Dunn class) said the class was full of professionals.  He once counted 100 in the class.  These students had an art education at Chicago Art Institute, the Art Students League, or the National Academy.  They could draw and paint beautifully.  Why then would they give up their evenings to attend this night class? Not to get a technical tip!  It was the approach to pictures, the sense that they were hearing the essential ingredient.  The realization that the spirit of the picture was the heart of it.  The pictorial idea was essential.  It had to be grasped and held and followed.  Dunn said, "there are ten thousand people in the United States who can paint and draw to beat the band. You never heard of them and  you never will.  They have thoroughly mastered their craft.  And that is all they have -- their craft."  Merely knowing your craft is not enough.  If you ever amount to anything at all, it will be because you have remained true to that deep desire within you which made you seek artistic expression through pictures.
 

The pictorial concept indicates or suggests in some manner how to achieve it.  It deals with its spirit, its essence.  Anything less is incidental.  This pictorial concept is the essential thing and it is derived from the spirit or character of the idea. Howard Pyle realized this, and finding the art schools inadequate, started one from which N.C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Harvey Dunn, and many others emerged, forming the "Brandywine Heritage".

In 1915 Dunn again saw little of merit in art schools, so he with Charles S. Chapman, started what was to be known as "The Dunn School" in Leonia, N.J.  Dean Cornwell, Harry Wickey, Frank Street, John S. Corry, Harold Von Schmidt, Saul Tepper, Mead Schaeffer, Mario Cooper, Amos Sewell, and many others came out of this rich tradition. Dunn said, "All I am doing is carrying on the Pyle idea.  Howard Pyle did not teach art.  Art cannot be taught, any more than life can be taught.  He did lay constant stress upon the proper relationship of things.   His main purpose was to quicken our souls that we might render the majesty of simple things.  Good fortune has certainly been mine, but I count the greatest piece was that opportunity that placed me under the instruction of Howard Pyle.  He made me unafraid to be dramatic."

Pyle believed in helping younger artists by freeing them from the cramping influence of methods usually taught in academies and schools.  He said, "I think first of all they should be taught to believe that all they arelearning of technique is only a dead husk in which must be enclosed the divine life of creative impulse. I know of no better legacy a man can leave to the world than that he aided others to labor at an art so beautiful as that to which I have devoted my life."
 

"Teaching is the most important work I have done," said Harvey Dunn.  his class was advanced -- on a higher plateau than any other -- much technical work was achieved by most prior to their being admitted to the Dunn class. Many are unaware of Dunn's own ability to render.  Once he urged me to do a good still life. As an example, he showed me one he had done of a Donatello bas-relief.  I was stunned, for I realized that I was viewing a picture on canvas, and not, sculpture itself.   Pyle's class drew from imagination, in charcoal draped figures in which it was evident from the rendering whether the material was cotton, silk, linen, wool, or whatever.  Pyle placed a white table against a white wall and putting a white egg on a white plate, had the students paint it in full color.

Dunn did not make us do that, but when the model would arrive and try out various poses to reveal herself in the most attractive manner, he would have her assume the most ordinary pose possible.  Then, facing he would say, "it's up to you to make that the most interesting picture in the world by how you paint it." He believed a picture could be painted only once.  He did not believe it was first done small, then rendered large.  His "sketches" were extremely simple but complete.  They indicated only the direction in which the idea was to go.  Pyle's sketches for the people watching the battle of Bunker Hill from the rooftops (see "Step-by-Step" Vol. 3. No. 4 p. 81) is a perfect example of the nature of Dunn's sketches as well.

Occasionally he made studies of parts of his pictures. As a study for "The Prairie Mother" done in red conte on tracing paper.  He then drew the main parts on canvas in charcoal.

He painted standing at arm's length with the virility of a boxer or fencer with bristle brushes loaded with paint sometimes producing a circular pattern or screwing motion.  His canvases were occasionally very heavy, causing him to remark "If they fell off the easel, they would go through the floor." This was an obvious exaggeration and when I asked him why he painted so thickly, he answered, "I paint as thinly as I can".  We concluded he kept at it until it was right no matter how much paint it took. "The Prairie Mother" or "Dakota Woman" as it is titled sometimes was on and off  his easel going through various stages for years.  When he finished it, it received a silver and gold frame made in Chicago by NewcombMacklin, and was given to the "Friends of the Middle Border", in Mitchell, S.D.  As a teacher and guide to many loyal students, he achieved a prominence equal to the one held by the man he never ceased to admire -- Howard Pyle.
 

These former students (now 50 or more years later) have the same admiration, respect, and warm feeling for him.  This feeling undiluted by time is almost fierce in its loyalty.  Dunn taught a philosophy of life more than anything else. He paid very little attention to technique emphasizing instead the qualities that separated a real artist from a draftsman.  "Paint a little less of the facts and a little more of the spirit," he said.
 

"Paint more with feeling than with thought. When intellect comes in, art goes out." In  the words of Dean Cornwell, "half of what Dunn said as a teacher was for the effect on his pupils."

Most classes of  other teachers were interested in form and technique -- the Dunn class was different. Motivation was the key. Usually Wednesday evening after class was over, all lights were dimmed except one reserved for displaying the picture brought in for Dunn's criticism by members of the class.  One week I failed to bring one for this event.  He asked, "Why not?"  I replied that I couldn't get an idea.

"You couldn't, eh? Well, next week you get here with fourteen pictures, and see that you do!"

This order emphatically delivered propelled me to do anything I could possibly think of.   At the next class, I brought in all of the number I could manage, which was nine in oil,  about 24" x 36".  He had forced me to break the "log jam" of ideas. I was so enriched and stimulated by the procedure, that when Dunn ordered me to bring in nine more the following week, I was eager to do it.

On the following criticism night he demanded to know from the rest of the class what they were doing, since the "ordered" efforts dominated the scene. He re-awakened me and stimulated the whole class to greater effort.

To those lucky enough to have studied with Harvey Dunn and know him as a guide and  friend, the first word that comes to mind is gratitude -- for the most enriching,  stimulating, and rewarding privilege of a lifetime.

He demanded we dig out of the depths of our being, what beauty and appreciation  of life we had.  It was difficult and obviously we were not always successful -- but on  the occasion when the idea was followed and self kept out of the way, achievement  resulted.  As he said, "When we are successful and do a good picture, we are not conscious of how we did it -- we were just around when it happened."

We wondered if there was ever another with qualities of courage and strength so tempered with love for the beautiful.  His pictures were a document to human endeavor  touched with power and grace.