The Art of the Woodcut Novel

The Lamson Library explores a different type of novel October 14- December 15 as it hosts The Art of the Woodcut Novel. This exhibit has traveled from the AVA Gallery and Art Center of Lebanon, NH to expose our campus to a form of the wordless novel. Woodcut novels are the focused lenses on humanistic ideas that are told through black and white pictures. These stories are depicted on the surface of a wooden block and printed on the surface. Areas that show ‘white' are usually cut away by a knife or chisel for the full effect. The remaining ‘black' is the visual on the original surface of the wooden block. Together the in-depth texture and visual of black and white on one canvas makes one bold illustration. These graphic arts tell realistic and imaginative stories that originated in Asia and used in Europe. Woodcut novels were inspired through the history of graphic arts and despite their short-lived popularity, played a major roll in the development of the contemporary graphic novel. 

While they were not among the most popular form of graphic design, woodcut novels become recognized and published in the early 20th century. A selected few titles have been carried out and canonized. Works completed by Frans Masereel, Neil Bousfield, Marta Chudolinska, Roger Buck, Megan Speers, George Walker, and Stefan Berg are all being featured throughout the library. 

While each and every display told their own story, I found the work of Frans Masereel to be the most conspicuous. Masereel (1889-1972) was born in Ghent, Belgium and considered his artistic career at an early age. Masereel studied drawing at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Ghent before taking interest in traveling to Paris and Brittany. He completed most of his paintings and graphic arts in France and was especially known for his woodcuts and his ability to create wordless graphic novels. On display in the library Marsereel's Debout Les Morts (Arise Ye Dead) captures moving stories of war atrocities created in 1917. His return to Ghent years later enabled him to become a part of the International Pacifist movement and work for the International Red Cross. 

Masereel also took interest in newspapers such as the Swiss La Feuille and the periodical Les Tablettes. This experience gave him his workmanship as he was creating timely drawings for a significant cause. These early drawings permitted Marsereel to develop a knack for the usage of black and white, which we see in his novels displayed. 

The exhibit is again being displayed in the Lamson Library and is the collaborative work of David A. Berona, Dean of Library and Academic Support Services at Plymouth State University. His focused research on all the featured artists commemorate in his book, Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels.