''The Sun'' (french: Le Soleil) 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 ...

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 ...

(1889–1972), published in 1919. In sixty-three uncaptioned

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 book is a contemporary retelling of the Greek myth of

Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; grc, Ἴκαρος, Íkaros, ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos suspe ...

. Told with high-contrast black-and-white art with bold linework, the book's protagonist is a little man who leaps from the imagination of his sleeping creator. The little man repeatedly tries to find his way to the sun, climbing towers, trees, and a staircase of clouds before his success sends him plummeting back to earth—and his creator. Masereel was the first wordless novelist, and ''The Sun'' followed on the success of Masereel's first works in the genre, ''

25 Images of a Man's Passion ''25 Images of a Man's Passion'', or ''The Passion of a Man'' is the first wordless novel by Flemish artist Frans Masereel (1889–1972), first published in 1918 under the French title . The silent story is about a young working-class man wh ...

'' (1918) and ''

Passionate Journey ''Passionate Journey, or My Book of Hours'' (french: Mon livre d'heures), is a wordless novel of 1919 by Flemish artist Frans Masereel. The story is told in 167 captionless prints, and is the longest and best-selling of the wordless novels Ma ...

'' (1919). A young

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 ...

read a copy of ''The Sun'' while studying

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 ...

in Germany, and the book was an influence of the American artist making wordless novels of his own, beginning in 1929 with ''

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 ...

''.

Synopsis

An artist resembling Masereel rests his head on his desk beneath a blazing sun. From his head leaps a small male who, seeing the sun, sets out in pursuit of it, plummeting from the window in his attempt. Crowds of people try to divert him with sex and alcohol, but the little man persists in climbing trees, chimneys, church steeples, masts, and cranes. He climbs a staircase of clouds only to be burned by the sun, sending him hurtling back to the artist's desk, awakening the artist. The artist turns to the reader with a smile, tapping his head.

Production, publication history, and legacy

Masereel produced 63

pages for the story. It was first published in Switzerland under the French title ''Le Soleil: 63 images dessinées et gravées sur bois'' by Éditions du Sablier in 1919, and by German publisher Kurt Wolff the following year under the title ''Die Sonne: 63 Holtzschinitte''. The first English-language edition appeared in 1990 from English publisher Redstone under the title ''The Sun: A Novel Told in 63 Woodcuts''. American artist

read a copy of ''The Sun'' in its German edition while studying

in Germany in the late 1920s. Masereel's wordless novel 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 ...

's, ''

Destiny Destiny, sometimes referred to as fate (from Latin ''fatum'' "decree, prediction, destiny, fate"), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often ...

'' (1926), moved Ward to create his own wordless novels, beginning in 1929 with ''

''.

Style

Over a fifty-year career Masereel's style and themes varied little from book to book: socialist messages told with images in a symbolic, almost cartoon style. The thick-lined artwork is in high-contrast black and white, with a compositional imbalance that impresses the reader to move from one picture to the next.

References

Works cited

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sun Woodcut novels by Frans Masereel 1919 novels 1919 in comics Pantomime comics Fantasy comics Classical mythology in comics