The Sun (wordless novel)

rdf:langString The Sun (wordless novel)

rdf:langString The Sun

rdf:langString Le Soleil

rdf:langString The Sun

rdf:langString Black-and-white illustration of a man seated and hunched over a table, facing left, hold his art tools. Out the window on the left, the sun beats down upon the man.

rdf:langString Switzerland

rdf:langString Le Soleil

rdf:langString The Sun (French: Le Soleil) is a wordless novel by Flemish artist Frans Masereel (1889–1972), published in 1919. In sixty-three uncaptioned woodcut prints, the book is a contemporary retelling of the Greek myth of Icarus. 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 (1918) and Passionate Journey (1919). A young Lynd Ward read a copy of The Sun while studying wood engraving in Germany, and the book was an influence of the American artist making wordless novels of his own, beginning in 1929 with Gods' Man.