James Reid’s only wordless publication, The Life of Christ in Woodcuts, is comprised of 78 wood engravings and is divided into four sections: “The Infant,” “The Boy,” “The Son of Man” and “The Messiah” – it is not a wordless story or novel.
This woodcut novel, by James Reid, a Philadelphia illustrator of children’s books, depicts the biblical life of Christ rendered with traditional themes and characters that are immediately recognized by readers familiar with Christian culture. This traditional approach was far from the intense and unconventional artistic tone of the time, expressed by artists like Georges Rouault, whose series of paintings called Miserere (1914-27) exhibited an Expressionist and primitive feeling for Christ the Messiah. It is highly unlikely that a reader unfamiliar with Christian culture could interpret this tale, since the pictures in Reid’s book depend on the understanding of the gospels from an Anglo-Christian perspective. Without this knowledge of Christian culture, the narrative would be open to broader interpretation. Historically, the connection of the life of Christ presented in Reid’s woodcuts has a similarity to the early fifteenth-century depiction of the gospels in woodcuts.
David Beronä in Wordless Novels in Woodcuts; PRINT QUARTERLY, XX, 2OO3, p 61-73 at p. 69:
While Beronä referred to The Life of Christ as a “woodcut novel” in the above quote, in his book, Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels. New York: Abrams Books, 2008, he excluded it along with all other biblical works.
- It is my belief it was excluded on the basis it was not really a story but a series of illustrations touching on high points in a biblical story ie the same reason I have listed it under the tab, “Anomalies“.