Description

Data Visualization
HISTORY OF IDEAS
ABC / AVANT-GARDE

Paulo de CANTOS (1892-1979).

O abc.
Para meninos e meninas dos 5 aos se…tenta anos! Mínimo, proveito máximo.

[The ABC. For Boys and Girls from 5 to… Many Years Old! Minimum, Maximum Benefit]

Self Pronouncing – Basic Language – Kay to Rules. O abc. The Portuguese-Brazilian minor Alphabet [Title in English on p. 4]

[S. l., S. d, but circa 1938-1940].

An unusual illustrated ABC of “20 letters of Portuguese-Brazilian alphabet” is composed of highly unusual geometric colour illustrations of letters and images, accompanied with a text, how to draw letters from every day objects, above and somehow confusing anecdotes below. The equally confusing explanation of the book on the second page is written in a mixture of Spanish, Italian, German, English, Japanese, Russian and Esperanto.

The last part of the text introduces various improvised games for children.

This example is dedicated to Adolfo de Figueiredo by the author in manuscript on the first page.

The rear wrapper advertises de Cantos’s book on Portugal (see: Portugal – Daša Pahor).

We could not trace any institutional examples on Worldcat.

Paulo de Cantos (1892-1979)

Paulo de Cantos (1892-1979) was a Portuguese author, educator, bibliophile and amateur typographer, who authored between 1920 and 1960 circa 40 (and according to other sources up to 70 titles) on linguistics, geography, anatomy, literature, mathematics and folklore, all illustrated with unusual and unique data visualization, which was a part of his innovative pedagogical theories. His images are composed of repetitive small geometric patterns, letters or musical notes, much closer to modern presentation of information than to the contemporary art of his time.

This aimed to help students detach the letter from its common function of conveying sound (phonetic writing) in order to access the letter’s potential as an expressive shape, capable of producing meaning through a kind of pre-alphabetized logic – i. e. by facing, using and combining it accordingly to its visual / formal similarities to bits of reality. (Rita Carvalho, Letterpress Experiments in a Design Course, Post-Digital Letterpress Printing. Research, Education and Practice, 2021, p. 77.)

Cantos’s work, which was often printed in various techniques, only recently started gaining recognition in Portugal and he remains almost unknown outside of his native country.

A handful of exhibitions (including an exhibition at the Gulbenkian Museum in Paris, between September 19 and October 20, 2017) and a monography (António Silveira Gomes – Cláudia Castelo, A Cantos Compendium: A Designer of Pedagogical Theories, 2023) have been made on him in recent years. According to today’s researches Paulo de Cantos is considered to be decades ahead of his time.

Cantos’s books, printed in only small numbers and mostly surviving in uncut condition, suggest, that his work was only known to a limited circle of his contemporaries. His works only rarely appear in libraries outside Portugal.