Pye was long known in art circles as the "Father of landscape engraving," and he certainly succeeded, as no other engraver has done, in his translation of colour values and suggestion of aërial perspectives. Turner's paintings were his favourite subjects, and his interpretations of them are brilliant in expression, and charged with the very essence of artistic feeling.
His life and work indicated a progress as distinct as it was far reaching.
"And still the work went on,
And on, and on, and is not yet completed.
The generation that succeeds our own
Perhaps may finish it."
It has been through the efforts of these men and others who, though less influential, were not less skilful perhaps, or less earnest, that English engraving, in its daring innovations and substantial improvements, has far outstripped that of other countries. By them its reputation has been built up and enhanced, so that "its influence is conspicuously visible in the principles and history of Art."