The city

THE CITY is one of the most remarkable achievements of the great wood-engraver Frans Masereel, whose PASSIONATE JOURNEY, THE IDEA and STORY WITHOUT WORDS have also been published by Redstone Press. Born in Belgium in 1889, Masereel lived most of his life in France and was fervently admired by other artists and writers, among them Stefan Zweig, Herman Hesse and Thomas Mann.

THE CITY is a symbolic mirror of civilization as a whole, in which, as Mann wrote, Masereel 'has depicted the brutal factory of modern life, grotesque and bumble in it's inexorable vulgarity.' The scene of violent disconnected episodes, sexual, criminal, financial and political, THE CITY is where men congregate, in cafes, offices and banks, and where they separate, back to their rooms and doorways. Through the landscape of sharp angles and broad planes Masereel shows us life at its most dehumanised whilst at the same time offering us glimpses of the potential for collective purpose. It is an art, as Mann also wrote, 'Crowded with contradictions, contradictions of the diabolical and the damned.