Frans Masereel’s book first appeared in 1964 under the title “Route des Hommes.” The 60 woodcuts in this book came forty years after the others I reviewed. From what I can piece together from the French and German sources that I can’t read, I think maybe it was connected with of some kind of exhibition or retrospective. Who knows.
The style is much more loose and slashing, not quite as tidy as the earlier works. Taking on a larger, broader story, the panels also become more thematic. There’s a lot more abstract icons embedded in the pictures. Panels are less explicitly connected to the ones on the previous pages. Characters don’t really carry over from scene to scene, but the ideas accrete and overlap over a series of page turns.
[update: images removed for copyright complaint from Verwertungsgesellschaft Bild-Kunst. so it goes.]
Here’s the opening, with its huddled masses:
Later we get to the expressionist bits.
Sturm und drang. I love this one.
Masereel’s omnipresent, beckoning sun.
A rare pastoral scene.
The space age.
I’m out of Masereel books now, so this is the end of the Masereel Appreciation Festival. Previous installments included a tidbit from L’Idee, Masereel in Film, and selections from Die Stadt and Die Sonne.
Mark Larson 