Nouvel alphabet militaire / Nieuw militaire alphabeth 1866 - 1902

Franciscus Antonius Beersmans created this educational print, "Nouvel alphabet militaire," presenting a grid of vignettes, each illustrating a letter or number through military scenes. The limited palette of blues, oranges, greens, and browns gives a consistent visual rhythm across the grid. The composition cleverly uses semiotic relationships. Each scene contains figures in action, rendering the alphabet through narrative. We see soldiers fighting, marching, and interacting with civilians, each tableau acting as a signifier for a letter or number. The structure imposes a sense of order, yet it is disrupted by the varied poses and actions of the characters. It evokes structuralist ideas about language, suggesting that even in learning, there's always a play between order and disorder, structure and interpretation. The arrangement suggests a controlled system for understanding the world.