Passionate Journey: A Vision in Woodcuts (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) - Softcover

Masereel, Frans

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486460185 ISBN 13: 9780486460185

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2007

Synopsis

"Look at these powerful black-and-white figures, their features etched in light and shadow . . . Has not this passionate journey had an incomparably deeper and purer impact on you than you have ever felt before?" — Thomas Mann
Belgian-born Frans Masereel (1889–1972) was one of the greatest woodcut artists of the twentieth century. Ingeniously portraying the human experience through dramatic art, this novel-without-words — crafted from 167 intricate woodcuts — is considered to be the Flemish artist's masterpiece.
A feast for the eyes and the imagination, this powerful visual narrative details the life of an ordinary man. From the first bustling frame to the last haunting image, we are deeply drawn into the hero's day-to-day encounters, and discover a spirit in quest — one that we can profoundly relate to, emotionally and intellectually. Through each extraordinarily vivid depiction, readers feel the hero's happiness, grief, awe, and despair.

About this title

Review:

Masereel's Passionate Journey occurs entirely in his series of 165 woodcuts, rather like a black-and-white movie, as Thomas Marm explains in his introduction, written in 1926. Each of the woodcuts centers on a young man who we may as well think of as Masereel himself, who was in his early thirties when he cut this novel. The young man is shown in a variety of situations, and a highly romantic account of Masereel's spiritual development emerges. The young artist enters a city by railroad and walks crowded streets with bemused amazement. Throughout the series he undergoes various pleasures and pains of the physical, mental, political, moral, and religious life as a sort of preparation for a Christlike death and spiritual rebirth. This is a thoroughly romantic, ego-centered production which provides a virtual checklist of the social, political, religious, and artistic concerns of Masereel's cultural moment. Audiences today will appreciate its value as a characterization (and equally as a caricature) of European intellectual life during the first two and a half decades of this century. We can no longer flip through it with the passion and mounting excitement which Mann describes in his introduction. For us, such journeys seem to end very close to where they began. -- From Independent Publisher

From Publishers Weekly:

Woodcutter, painter, cosmopolitan and anti-militarist, Belgium-born Masereel (1889-1972) was an extremely popular artist in 1920s Germany. A contemporary of Kathe Kollwitz and George Grosz, his "novels-without-words"--completely composed of woodcuts--have been neglected in the States. Here, 165 striking woodcuts generate the visual narrative of a young man's initiation into the urban milieu. The raw power and diversity of the city's day to day events continually expand his understanding of life's possibilities. The hero's fascination with the city's abundance of art and culture, political debate and industrial glory combine with observations on an equal profusion of poignant social trauma. The protagonist travels to distant lands; this journey of vibrant percipience propels him toward an enlarged comprehension of his role in a world of good and evil, love and tenderness and clashing social interests. Mann's effusive introduction discusses Masereel's life and influences and details the ideas that motivated and enliven this vivid work.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0486460185
• ISBN 13: 9780486460185
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176