calligraphy
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What is calligraphy?
Calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting, blending skill and artistic expression. It requires a knowledge of letterforms and the ability to create harmonious proportions that create a work of art.
In China, calligraphy is the supreme visual art form, setting the standard for painting. Western culture views calligraphy as an art that anyone can practice because of the plainer Greek- and Latin-derived alphabets. The term "calligraphy" appeared in the English language in 1613.
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What tools do people use for calligraphy?
Calligraphy tools include varied pens, each offering unique effects. Reed pens, cut from papyrus, create powerful strokes, favored by artists like Rembrandt. Quill pens, fashioned from goose or swan feathers, allow a range of strokes, from soft lines to broad marks. Metal pens of high-grade steel satisfy artists' demands with varying strengths.
Inks used can be fluid or paste, usually black or dark blue, with pigment or dye dissolved in a vehicle. Ancient Egyptians and Chinese used inks of lampblack and glue. Modern inks contain ferrous sulfate and dyes.
Paper, since the 15th century, has been the most popular surface. Handmade paper and vellum are favored, while specific textures suit different drawing tools.
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How is calligraphy different from regular handwriting?
Calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting, requiring knowledge of letterforms and skill in harmoniously arranging parts. While handwriting is a practical skill for everyday communication, calligraphy is considered a major art form in many cultures. After printing was introduced in Europe in the mid-15th century, a distinction between handwriting and calligraphy arose, with calligraphy emphasizing elaborate scripts and lettering. Although printing allowed for mass reproduction, calligraphy retained its artistic value, influencing modern advertising and typeface design.
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What are some styles of calligraphy?
Calligraphy features diverse styles shaped by history, tools, and cultural context. Several notable styles include:
- Rustic capitals were used throughout the Roman Empire for books and formal documents. Pens were broad, with thick strokes oblique to the writing line.
- Cursive capitals were a business hand in the 1st century for correspondence. Pens were narrow, and lifted less often, leading to simpler letterforms.
- Uncial is an ancient majuscular book hand from the 2nd century with simple, rounded strokes, favored by scribes for Latin literature.
- Italic script was developed by Italian humanists around 1400 from antique Latin texts. The script combines the rhythm of black-letter current hand with narrow strokes.
- Round hand script was dominant among 18th-century English writing masters, featuring letters sloped to the right and thick lines on downstrokes.
- Copperplate script was a dominant style among 18th-century writing masters, with basic strokes concealed in flourishing displays.
- Spencerian penmanship is a handwriting style developed by Platt Rogers Spencer, becoming a widely known system of writing instruction in the United States after about 1850.
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Where in the world is calligraphy an important art form?
Calligraphy is an important art form in various regions. In China, since the 3rd century CE, calligraphy has been considered the supreme visual art, requiring skill, judgment, and spiritual attunement. The rhythmic movement of the calligraphic line influences other Chinese arts, promoting harmony and unity of style.
Arabic calligraphy has been significant since the 7th and 8th centuries CE, spreading with the Islamic conquests from the Atlantic to Pakistan. The Arabic script, evolved from Nabataean, unites diverse cultures through its fluid and balanced lines. Persia and Turkey also contributed to calligraphy by adopting the Arabic script for their languages.
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How has calligraphy influenced art and design?
Calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting, has significantly influenced art and design across cultures. In China, calligraphy is supreme among visual arts, demanding skill and revealing the writer's character. The aesthetics of the line in Chinese calligraphy have influenced other arts, like bronze ritual motifs and the flow of drapery in Buddhist sculpture.
The revival of calligraphy in the West during the late 19th century was part of an artistic reaction against the mechanization of manual crafts. William Morris's exploration of ancient scribal practices and Edward Johnston's study of medieval techniques led to a renewed interest in lettering and type design, impacting 20th-century graphic design and typography.
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calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting. The term may derive from the Greek words for âbeautyâ (kallos) and âto writeâ (graphein). It implies a sure knowledge of the correct form of lettersâi.e., the conventional signs by which language can be communicatedâand the skill to make them with such ordering of the various parts and harmony of proportions that the experienced, knowledgeable eye will recognize such composition as a work of art. Calligraphic work, as art, need not be legible in the usual sense of the word.
In the Middle East and East Asia, calligraphy by long and exacting tradition is considered a major art, equal to sculpture or painting. In Western culture the plainer Greek- and Latin-derived alphabets and the spread of literacy have tended to make handwriting in principle an art that anyone can practice. Nonetheless, after the introduction of printing in Europe in the mid-15th century, a clear distinction arose between handwriting and more elaborate forms of scripts and lettering. In fact, new words meaning âcalligraphyâ entered most European languages about the end of the 16th century, and in English the word calligraphy did not appear until 1613. Writing books from the 16th century through the present day have continued to distinguish between ordinary handwriting and the more decorative calligraphy.
It has often been assumed that the printing process ended the manuscript tradition. This is not quite true: for example, most of the surviving books of hours (lavish private devotional manuscript books) date from the period after the introduction of printing. Furthermore, certain types of publications, such as musical scores, scientific notation, and other specialized or small-audience works, continued to be handwritten well into the 19th century. Thus, although handwritten books could not be reproduced in quantity or with complete uniformity, they did survive the introduction of printing. Printing and handwriting began to influence each other: for example, modern advertising continues to incorporate calligraphy, and many calligraphers have through the years designed typefaces for printing.
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Early Semitic writing
During the 2nd millennium bce, various Semitic peoples at the eastern end of the Mediterranean were experimenting with alphabetic writing. Between 1500 and 1000 bce, alphabetic signs found in scattered sites showed a correspondence of form and provided material for sound translations. Bodies of writing from this period are fragmented: a few signs scratched on sherds or cut in stone. Few of these are celebrated in terms of aesthetic value.
One interesting set of Semitic inscriptions was discovered in 1905 at an ancient mining site on the Sinai Peninsula. A sphinx from that discovery yields the taw, nun, taw, or t, n, t, meaning âgift.â It is evident that the nun, or n, sign is a rendering of a serpent. Most of the early Semitic alphabetic signs were similarly derived from word signs of more ancient vintage.
The several Semitic peoples in the Middle East area spoke languages that were closely related, and this enabled them to use the same set of alphabetic signs. After some experimentation the alphabet was reduced to 22 signs for consonants. There were no vowel signs. The tribes of Canaan (Hebrews, Phoenicians, and Aramaeans) were important in the development of alphabetic writing, and all seemed to be employing the alphabet by 1000 bce.
The Phoenicians, living along a 20-mile (30-kilometre) strip on the Mediterranean, made the great sea their second home, giving the alphabet to Greeks in the mutual trading area and leaving inscriptions in many sites. One of the finest Phoenician inscriptions exists on a bronze cup from Cyprus called the Baal of Lebanon (in the Louvre, Paris) dating from about 800 bce. The so-called Moabite Stone (also in the Louvre), which dates from about 850 bce, has an inscription that is also a famous example of early Semitic writing.
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