Graphic History

Book excerpt: The suite of forty prints published in Geneva in 1570 depicting the wars, massacres and troubles of the French Wars of Religion may have been the first picture history made in woodcuts or etchings that promised a geenral public a true view of great events of the recent past. This richly illustrated study reconstructs the gradual elaboration of this experimental work, situating it within the previously untold story of the use of the graphic arts to report the news in the fist centuries of European printmaking. Successive chapters explore the pictorial traditions that inspired the printmakers, examine how they gathered their information, assess the reliability of the scenes, and analyze the historical vision informing the series. Part 2 reproduces the full suite with commentary in double page fold-outs. Through the study of a single print series, lost chapters in the history of jorunalism, of the graphic arts, and of Protestant historical consciousness re-emerge.