The City: A Vision in Woodcuts (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

Masereel's work, as one of Will Eisner's inspirations, is an ancestor of the modern graphic novel. That historical insight is a freebie, though. Reading this slim book offers many rewards of much more direct sorts.It's not a graphic novel itself, no matter what some have said about it. Instead of a novel's narrative coherence, this presents a sequence of still images. They relate to each other only loosely and conceptually, not in causal flow. This criticism applies only to how Masereel's work is presented, however, and not to the work itself. That is exceptional.Woodcut may look crude, if your eye isn't attuned to it. Edges are hard; delicacy arises from the subject matter and composition, not from the medium. That works well in this case, since Masereel uses it to document the hard parts of city life between the two world wars. He shows love freely given, but also physical love for hire or taken by force. There is death, violence, and military hardware in the streets. Masereel shows both sides of everything, though: medical students harvest life for others from a woman's cadaver, and a steel mill's torrent of fire reminds the reader of how society's tools and materials are formed.Masereel's visual style tends toward the primitive, despite the city sophistication of his subjects. It works. His primitive lines emphasize the primitive urges of life, love, control, and violence. He fills his visual field with detail. Even though woodcut is a medium of contrasts, many of these prints tend toward a uniform texture and "gray." That sometimes makes it hard to focus on the central points of an image. It also conveys that very urban sense of closeness and distraction, the feeling that everything everywhere is competing for attention, and confusion about what really needs the attention.Dover has recently brought this and similar work (including Lynd Ward's) back into print after decades of obscurity. Perhaps the copyright limit expired and the work has fallen into the public domain. Whatever the reason, it has fallen back into public awareness, too, and I'm glad of it.//wiredweird

I don't expect a below $7 art book to be of that high a quality. As stated by other reviewers the images are on the small side, ok I guess. There being 15-20 pages with ink smeared across in varying degrees was disappointing. I hit the return button because of the the multiple pages that were stuck together by globs of ink not allowed to dry before assembling the book and could not be separated for fear of ripping the paper. Refund initiated.

Some of these woodcuts I have already seen many times, and it is nice to see them all. It is interesting to look for all the details in the pictures. Of course, He overdoes it: the cities were not that crowded, but it is dramatic, and I think, gives the feeling of the period.

I'm not used to seeing Masereel printed on the kind of glossy stock that Dover uses for this edition, but it works.It is as if the black and white images are more vibrant, and the stark lines even starker.A couple of years ago I got the Thames and Hudson edition of MASEREEL as a gift, and , even though I knew him from the odd illustration and even more so from his work on Tijl Uilenspiegel, this was the real eye opener to the great talent of this woodcut master.I highly recommend this book that sporadically appears on Amazon and ebay , and, tthough not cheap, worth every cent.

This book contains no dialogue, but is a series of woodcuts by Frans Masereel depicting life in The City. The art is intricate, meticulous and stunning in its detail. The reader must decide for himself or herself what the renderings depict. Take your time with this wonderful book. It is not a "graphic novel" one can breeze through, but a substantial work of art and thought. Highly recommended.Steveland On the Waves

Everything that is in the city is in Masereel's woodcuts: the good, the bad, the ugly...it is all here in powerful images done in woodcut. Masereel's woodcuts translate city life in every aspect,...rich, poor, work, play, night, day, life, and death. The simplicity he uses to convey his message, results in emotionally charged images that feel timeless. These woodcuts were originally done in 1930's, but everything in this books still has a great relative value todays living.

The author captured very interesting viewpoints. It made me see things a little bit different. This was very interesting. I think i enjoyed a bit more than books containing words because while i was "reading" the pictures, it made me think of what each pictures represented. I enjoyed reading this.

The book has a weird smell, almost as if it lay right next to raw fish.

This was a compelling and rather depressing vision of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. No words, the pictures speak for themselves of the myriad facets of life in a large city: birth, death, marriage, sex, violence, work, play – and above all overcrowding. There are too few happy faces. Whatever is happening, the people look exhausted, run-down and ground down.The pictures are devoid of colour – accenting the depressive nature of the city. The lines are not fine, the pictures rather blocky and dense, but entirely appropriate for the subjects.Highly recommended.

The pictures themselves are beautiful, but there are two big problems with this edition: 1) the size of the pictures is small - there are huge borders around each one, so what you get are roughly postcard-sized prints in a much larger book, when it would be great to have larger pictures. 2) The print quality is terrible and the ink is smeared on some pages. I bought two copies for Christmas presents but need to decided whether I return them or give them as presents, when the quality is not really good enough.

It was never going to be less than 5 stars for this highly evocative, beautifully illustrated "vision" of a city or cities pre 1925. A real snapshot in history of all sections of society and humanity. My only slight gripe is that the size (and scale) of the magnificent cover picture is not maintained within the book - where all the woodcuts are about 12.5cm x 9cm which is not huge. However, they are endlessly fascinating and a true "meisterwerk"!

Got this at the same time as 'God's Man' by Lynd Ward. This is a different style of woodcut which is lighter in feel. Unfortunately it didn't have the same strength of emotion through it's storytelling which was harder to follow. It is more like a commentary, or as Masereel titled it - a vision, than a novel as it is described on its cover.Interesting that the Nazis banned it, though I sense that it has some imagery similar to that of the film 'Cabaret' the juxtaposition of entertainment, work and discord.

I love Woodcuts and this collection inspires me.