''Story Without Words'' (french: Histoire sans paroles: 60 images dessinées et gravées sur bois), is a

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 ...

of 1920 by

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

artist

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 ...

. In 60 captionless

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

prints the story tells of a man who strives to win the love of a woman.

Synopsis

A man tries through physical expressions to win the love of a woman. She finally agrees to have sex with him after he threatens suicide. She becomes attached to him, but he leaves her after he is sexually satisfied, leaving her alone to her grief.

Publication history

The book was first published in Geneva in 1920 under the French title ''Histoire sans paroles: 60 images dessinées et gravées sur bois''. A German edition from Kurt Wolff appeared in 1922 under the title ''Geschichte ohne Worte: 60 Holzschnitte''. An English edition did not appear until London publisher

Redstone Press Redstone Press is a London-based art book publisher that was founded in 1986 by Julian Rothenstein, the son of English portrait painter Duffy Ayers and her first husband, the painter and printmaker Michael Rothenstein. Publisher Julian Rothenstein ...

released it in 1986 in a paired edition with '' The Idea'' (1920), entitled ''The Idea and Story Without Words: Two Novels Told in Woodcuts''. The images in the book were made from

s sized .

Style

In black-and-white, captionless woodcut images, Masereel places the woman to the left in each composition, where her reaction to her wooer's attempts to impress her are displayed in her facial expression, sometimes favourable and sometimes not. The background mirrors the man's attempts—when he shows her his bicep, circus strongmen appear behind them; when he tries to woo her with song, his pitiable attempts are mocked in the background, where not songbirds but a crow and rooster appear.

References

Works cited

* 1920 novels 1920 comics debuts Drama comics Pantomime comics Woodcut novels by Frans Masereel {{comics-stub