''Prelude to a Million Years: A Book of Wood Engravings'' is a 1933

wordless novel The wordless novel is a narrative genre that uses sequences of captionless pictures to tell a story. As artists have often made such books using woodcut and other relief printing techniques, the terms woodcut novel or novel in woodcuts are a ...

consisting of thirty

wood engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and ...

s by American artist

Lynd Ward Lynd Kendall Ward (June 26, 1905 – June 28, 1985) was an American artist and novelist, known for his series of wordless novels using wood engraving, and his illustrations for juvenile and adult books. His wordless novels have influenced ...

(1905–1985). It was the fourth of Ward's six wordless novels, a genre Ward discovered while studying

in Europe, and delved into under the influence of the works of

Frans Masereel Frans Masereel (31 July 1889 – 3 January 1972) was a Flemish painter and graphic artist who worked mainly in France, known especially for his woodcuts focused on political and social issues, such as war and capitalism. He completed over ...

and

Otto Nückel Otto Nückel (Cologne, 6 September 1888 – Cologne, 12 November 1955) was a German painter, graphic designer, illustrator and cartoonist. He is best known as one of the 20th century's pioneer wordless novelists, along with Frans Masereel and Ly ...

. The symbol-rich story tells of a sculptor who, in his quest for ideal beauty, neglects the reality of the struggles of his neighbors in the depths of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. The engravings are done in a softer

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style in contrast to the

German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

-influenced artwork of Ward's earlier works.

Background

(1905–1985) was a son of

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

minister and social activist Harry F. Ward (1873–1966). Throughout his career the younger Ward displayed in his work the influence of his father's interest in social injustice. Ward married writer

May McNeer May Yonge McNeer Ward (pen name, May McNeer; 1902 in Tampa, Florida – 1994 in Reston, Virginia) was a 20th-century American journalist and writer. Early life Her first published story appeared in a Washington, D.C. newspaper when she was eleven ...

in 1926 and the couple left for Europe, where Ward spent a year studying

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, Germany. There he encountered German

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

art and read the wordless novel ''The Sun'' (1919) by Flemish woodcut artist

(1889–1972). Ward returned to the United States and freelanced his illustrations. In 1929, he came across German artist

's wordless novel ''Destiny'' (1926) in New York City. The work inspired Ward to create a wordless novel of his own, (1929), which he followed with ''

Madman's Drum ''Madman's Drum'' is a wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985), published in 1930. It is the second of Ward's six wordless novels. The 118 wood-engraved images of ''Madman's Drum'' tell the story of a slave trader who stea ...

'' (1930) and ''

Wild Pilgrimage ''Wild Pilgrimage'' is the third wordless novel of American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985), published in 1932. It was executed in 108 monochromatic wood engravings, printed alternately in black ink when representing reality and orange to repre ...

'' (1932). In December 1931, Ward and McNeer were among the nine cofounders of Equinox Cooperative Press, dedicated to a hands-on approach to bookmaking.

Content and style

The book opens with a dream sequence in which a sculptor worships before a flower symbolizing beauty. The sculptor struggles to capture his vision of beauty in a sculpture of an idealized woman. In his artistic pursuits he neglects the reality around him and the toll the Depression of the 1930s has taken on the people whose paths he crosses—a neighbor who is beaten by her husband, violent social protest,

jingoistic Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inter ...

nationalists, and drunkenness. He is engulfed in flames when he returns to his studio trying to flee it all. Ward returns to the theme of an artist in a decaying culture that he explored in his first wordless novel, ''

Gods' Man ' is a wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985) published in 1929. In 139 captionless Woodblock printing, woodblock prints, it tells the Faustian story of an artist who signs away his soul for a magic paintbrush. was the very ...

'' (1929), and intended the work as a commentary on how the Depression had colored outlooks since ''Gods' Man'': headlines declaring endless layoffs, strikes, lock-outs, and political spin. To Ward, "Inevitably a process of polarization of the citizenry was set in motion". The style has evolved from the angular

of Ward's earlier books to a softer

one. He uses symbols throughout the book, such as the spinning of a spiderweb to indicate the passage of time, a fire hydrant echoing the emotions of a street riot, towering city buildings for capitalism, and flags for patriotism. The most prominent symbol is a flower, representing the artist's distracted quest for beauty while he remains indifferent to the turmoil around him.

Production, publication, and reception

Ward made thirty

s for the book, ranging in size from to . It was published in 1933 by the Equinox Cooperative Press, a bookmaking cooperative that Ward had cofounded. The first edition was the third book Equinox published. It was limited to 920 copies and printed from the original woodblocks. It was hand-bound in

French fold Book folding is the stage of the book production process in which the pages of the book are folded after printing and before binding. Until the middle of the 19th century, book folding was done by hand, and was a trade. In the 1880s and 1890s, b ...

s and a gold foil spine. Modestly priced, it sold well and brought in revenue to sustain Equinox's other book projects. Reception was mixed. Reviewer E. L. Tinker praised Ward's visual mastery, but denigrated Ward's repetition of plot—the protagonist's "revolt against the injustices of society his preoccupation with sex, his self-loathing after he has succumbed to the scarlet woman, and his final disillusionment". Wood engraver

John DePol John DePol (September 16, 1913 – December 13, 2004) was a New York printmaker and wood engraver. He was perhaps best known for his illustrations of the Benjamin Franklin keepsakes over a period of over 25 years. Shows of his art include a one ...

considered ''Prelude to a Million Years'' his favorite of Ward's wordless novels.

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * * * * {{Authority control Wordless novels by Lynd Ward 1933 books 1933 in comics Pantomime comics