The City (wordless Novel)

''The City'' (french: La Ville: cent bois gravés) is a 1925 wordless novel by Flemish artist Frans Masereel. In 100 captionless woodcut prints Masereel looks at many facets of life in a big city.

Background

Frans Masereel (1889–1972) was born in Blankenberge, Belgium. His stepfather's political beliefs left an impression on the young Masereel, who often accompanied him in socialist demonstrations. Masereel left to study art on his own in Paris and volunteered as a translator for the Red Cross in Geneva during World War I. He drew newspaper political cartoons, and copublished a journal in which he published his first woodcut prints. In 1918 he created the book of woodcuts to feature a narrative, ''25 Images of a Man's Passion'', which he followed with ''Passionate Journey'' (1919), '' The Sun'' (1919), ''Story Without Words'' (1920), and '' The Idea'' (1920).

Content and style

Unlike many of Masereel's other books, ''The City'' does not follow the unraveling of a plot. Instead, a series of images of life in a big city are on display, showing people from different backgrounds and stages of life: a state funeral, the inside of a poor family's home, a woman's lifeless body dragged out of a canal, prostitutes and entertainers, courtrooms and factories. It opens with a figure seated on a grassy hill staring at the smokestacked cityscape before him and closes with a solitary woman staring from her attic into a star-filled sky.

The visuals bear a strong German Expressionist influence—what critic describes as "the pictorial vocabulary of Expressionism". Masereel shared with the Expressionists a fondness for the woodcut, though he rejected such labeling of his work. Freed from the needs of plot Masereel was free to focus on individual images to express his vision of the city.

Publication history and reception

The work was made up of 100 woodcut prints sized . It was first published in 1925 in Paris under the French title french: La Ville: cent bois gravés by A. Morencé, and in a German edition titled ''Die Stadt'' from Kurt Wolff. Later editions include a 1961 edition from Pierre Vorms under the French title ',) and under the English title ''The City'' from Dover Publications in 1972 and from Random House and Schocken Books in 1988.

Critic Perry Willett believed ''The City'' "must be considered Masereel's masterpiece woodcut novel", and believed it anticipated the films '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis'' (1927) and '' Man with a Movie Camera'' (1929), in which the protagonist was the city itself. Masereel continued to publish wordless novels throughout his life, from ''L'Oeuvre'' in 1928 to ''Route des hommes'' in 1964.

External links

The City - Archive.org Source
: Complete text online.
The City - The Anarchist Library source

References

Works cited

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{{DEFAULTSORT:City, The
1925 French novels
1925 comics debuts
Pantomime comics
Slice of life comics
Woodcut novels by Frans Masereel