From Illustrated Book to Visual Sequence: Metric Architecture and Mirror Structure in Gyula Zilzer's 1926 Drawings for Zola (NEVS Model)

This article analyses an unpublished corpus of 176 illustrations produced by Gyula Zilzer in 1926 for Nana and La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret by Émile Zola. Based on the observation of recurrent formal regularities, it proposes an analytical model, Narrative Emergence in Visual Sequences (NEVS), grounded in a metric segmentation into units of 16 images whose terminal positions align systematically with observable indicators of narrative closure (changes of space, actants, and visual regime), conceived as a tool for describing the corpus’s organisation at the architectural level in terms of modules, openings, closures, and transitions. The analysis identifies a set of regularities organised across multiple levels, articulated around a core of metric and positional constraints (modular segmentation, assignment of openings and closures, and regular internal subdivision), from which dynamic properties, global configurations, and mechanisms of visual modulation emerge. The model distinguishes four epistemic categories of regularities: a small set of constitutive constraints (R1–R3) that define the architectural organisation of the corpus; derived properties and exceptions (R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9) that follow from those constraints or operate as documented modulations of them; relational evaluations (R10, R13) that compare structurally equivalent positions across the two corpora; and local descriptive observations (R11, R12) of compositional modulation. The strongest claims of the model concern the constitutive constraints; the remaining categories inherit support from these to varying degrees, specified in the relevant sections. The approach adopted is descriptive and qualitative-structural, based on exhaustive positional inspection of the complete image set. The analysis does not presuppose authorial intention, but instead evaluates the internal coherence of the observed regularities as possible indicators of an architectural organisation of the corpus. The results suggest that the corpus admits a consistent modular and metric description, together with a candidate set of correspondences between the two corpora analysed. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of the architectural level as a distinct analytical dimension in the study of sequential visual narrative and raise the possibility that certain organising principles may operate transversally across media, independently of their formal codification in later media. Within the theoretical frameworks examined in this study, inter-corpus mirror structure has not been formalised as a system of correspondences between structurally equivalent positions at corpus scale. The regularities identified at this level are not entailed by the illustrative function as such, and are more economically described as an architectural level of organisation operating alongside it. Note on image reproduction. The drawings analysed in this article are the work of Gyula Zilzer (1898–1969) and remain under active copyright protection until 2040 in the relevant jurisdictions. The author of this study is the legitimate owner of the physical originals (provenance: Stockholms Auktionsverk, July 2025; non-cataloguing confirmed by the Kungliga biblioteket, ref. PUB0087164; authentication conducted in person by Dr Bernhard A. Boehler, IFAA, November 2025), but is not the holder of reproduction rights, which belong to the heirs of the artist. Accordingly, individual images are not reproduced here. The analytical apparatus relies on schematic diagrams and detailed verbal descriptions that document the structural properties under examination without reproducing the visual content of the originals. This methodological choice does not compromise the verifiability of the analytical claims: the structural devices identified (R1–R13) operate at a level of abstraction that can be documented through positional coordinates, sequence references, and inventory data, all of which are provided in the tables and schematic figures of this article.