Jason D’Aquino’s Circus ABC (2010)

Jason D’Aquino’s Circus ABC (2010)
Jason D’Aquino
Hardcover, cloth spine, printed paper over boards. H158 x W 158 mm. 56 pages. Acquired from Amazon, 24 September 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection

At the intersection of alphabet books and artists’ books, surrealists and neo-surrealists come sailing, unicycling, swimming, stilt-walking and crossbreeding. Jason D’Aquino distinguishes his contribution with a circus theme and miniaturist’s hand, although his publisher Simply Read Books expands it to 158 mm square (6 x 6 inches).

The illustrations are more R. Crumb than Max Ernst, and the letters themselves hark back to Jean Midolle’s Écritures Ánciennes D’après Des Manuscrits & Les Meillers Ouvrages (1834). But in concept and execution, Jason D’Aquino’s Circus ABC is original. The fineness of D’Aquino’s drawings fascinates the eye.

Jean Midolle, Alphabet Composée 1832. From Luc Devroye’s Type Design, Typography, Typefaces and Fonts, last updated 18 May 2023. Accessed 26 May 2023.

D’Aquino’s book is also eclectic in its abecedary approach. Above, where the illustration for the letter C offers several things beginning with that letter, those for A and B do not play the “find the object” game, although they do have their jokes. The mermaid’s is an optical illusion.The barker’s joke is that he is D’Aquino’s self-portrait. And with the letter Z below, for which nothing shown begins with the letter Z, the visual puzzle lies in figuring out what the crown, martini and cigarette have to do with the anatomical swap-out between the goldfish and chimp — and why the image so strongly echoes that for letter A.

Surrealism has roots in the art of Hieronymus Bosch as well as in the fantastical alphabets of Jean Midolle and his medieval predecessors. Not surprising then that elements of D’Aquino’s world can be found in the Garden of Earthly Delights and the Kennicott Bible. Other surrealist alphabets from the Books On Books Collection are listed below.

Above: Detail from Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Early Delights (1490-1510). Below: Hebrew Bible (Former Prophets with Targum and various commentaries), Bodleian Library MS. Kennicott 5, 446v.

Only remembered after the Alphabets Alive! exhibition opened at the Bodleian in July 2023, The Three Delevines and W.G. Shepherd (their impresario on the occasion in 1897) have nevertheless demanded an appearance online among the other embodied alphabets (or lettered bodies) included in the “B for Bodies” display.

Shepherd is not merely the author of the Strand article but asserts his authorship of the alphabet performed by The Three Delevines. Although generous in his praise of the Australian brothers Sam, Harry and Percy for holding each of their poses for at least seven seconds and, in some uppercases, for twelve, Shepherd does not identify the Strand’s photographer by name or acknowledge his skill beyond “snapping”. At least, he refers to him as “our artist”.

So much of his effort went into discovering the music hall troupe and its performance called the “Satanic gambols”, and congratulating himself on his sculptural instruction, and then describing superfluously what his “artist” and the Delevines rendered, Shepherd neglected to do the research at the British Museum (before the Library was hived off) to realize that his claim to “Novelty” had been superseded several times over. Even right back to the diabolical calligraphy of the — oh the shame of it — French graphic artist Jean Midolle (b. 1794). Blame the oversight on the combination of Christmas and the Jubilee.

Books On Books

Curated by Robert Bolick

Jean Midolle

Books On Books Collection – Jason D’Aquino

Jason D’Aquino’s Circus ABC (2010)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – The Three Delevines

A Human Alphabet (1897)

Further Reading