The woodcut illustrations Jarry began to create in 1894 around the artists at Pont-Aven combined a crude modern aesthetic with primitive imagery he came across in old religious prints. Unlike his contemporaries, he made no attempt to unify the disparate designs within his early books. Claustrophobic arrangements of ornaments, obscure forms, occult symbols and other designs that verge on abstraction were melded into one visual vocabulary.
Alfred Jarry (1873–1907), Les minutes de sable mémorial (Paris: Mercure de France, 1894). The Morgan Library & Museum, gift of Robert J. and Linda Klieger Stillman, 2017. PML 197017.