Calligraphy Appreciation
Even if you’re currently thinking “I don’t know anything about calligraphy!”, I hope you’ll continue reading. My goal is to bring more awareness to the level of detail and dedication calligraphers put into their work, describe what makes calligraphy beautiful, and teach people how to improve their own calligraphy.
Before we can truly appreciate the wonder and beauty of calligraphy, we need to understand it better.
Calligraphy as Art
Before the 16th century, decorated writing wasn’t even thought about as art — at least not in Europe. In the Middle East and Asia, decorative writing had been considered a major art form — equal to sculpture or painting — well before the 16th century.
To this day, hundreds if not thousands of incredible works of calligraphic art are hidden away in National Archives rather than on display in museums. At the time, it was simply considered writing.
Each person we can call a calligrapher or scribe brings their own personality to their work. It makes their writing distinguishable from other writers’ work even when they are writing in the same script in the same book. This is how we’re able to identify how many individuals worked on a particular Medieval manuscript and how we can identify other works by the same scribes across different books or documents.
Calligraphy
Decorative but also functional, calligraphy falls into a grey area within the realm of art – it’s an art form that isn’t entirely subjective.
Similar to the way architecture needs to fulfill certain requirements to differentiate itself from structural engineering, calligraphy needs to fulfill certain requirements to differentiate itself from handwriting.
Architecture is art when it’s not too utilitarian. Calligraphy is art when it’s not too much like handwriting. Both require a level of functionality to be what they are and yet to elevate it to art, they require something more.
In other words, we need to know the fundamental rules of what makes functional arts what they are before we are able to bend or break those rules with our own artistic creativity.
Handwriting
The word “calligraphy” (from the Greek words kallos meaning “beauty” and graphein meaning “to write”) began to enter European languages by the end of the 16th century and appeared in English in 1613.
Calligraphy is more than “beautiful writing”. True, it is often embellished with gold, color, miniature paintings, or flourishes, but these only decorate the underlying letters. The letters themselves are the scaffolding — the foundation — to adorn.
Even without adornment, calligraphy distinguishes itself from mere writing. It is handwritten but not handwriting.
The goals of handwriting are speed, accuracy, and legibility, whereas calligraphy requires each letter to be laid down intentionally and accurately. Readability is less important simply because there will be decorative elements that might interfere, which are part of the design. There are differences between writing artistic-looking handwriting and writing as an art.
Printing
Calligraphy doesn’t seek to imitate the printed word. It’s actually the other way around. Johann Gutenberg, the 14th-century innovator whose work led to the widespread use of the mechanical printing press in Europe, had the vision that someday, the printed word could rival handwritten manuscripts for their decorative lettering.
Calligraphy doesn’t seek to imitate the printed word. It’s actually the other way around. Johann Gutenberg, the 14th-century innovator whose work led to the widespread use of the mechanical printing press in Europe, had the vision that someday, the printed word could rival handwritten manuscripts for their decorative lettering.
The written word is much older than the printed word. The mechanical process of printing on paper (using woodcuts) was invented in China during the Tang dynasty before the 8th century CE (History of Printing in East Asia), but handwriting has been discovered from as early as the 35th-32nd century BCE.
By the 1560s, the printing press had taken over publishing the written word in Europe, and literacy rose sharply. The key to the printing press’s popularity was a system of components made from wood or metal called ‘moveable type’ arranged within a frame. Once prepared, the frame could be set into a printing press to quickly and accurately reproduce multiple copies of the frame’s contents.
Even after printing was well-established as a form of disseminating information, writing by hand still had its place. There are many extant examples of books of hours (personal prayer books used by the wealthy), for example, that were produced after the rise of printing. As demand for printed materials increased, the demand for hand written materials decreased. This change in demand led to a widening distinction between everyday, utilitarian handwriting and more elaborate, decorative forms of writing (Britannica).
This was the beginning of calligraphy as an art.
Script or Hand, Never Font
The word ‘font’ comes from the Old French word fondre, meaning ‘melt’ and refers to the method used to manufacture the reusable metal components that made up moveable type. (The Etymology of Font). Font has also come to mean the style of letters used on a computer.
Different styles of Calligraphy letters are referred to as ‘scripts’ or ‘hands’, never ‘fonts’.
image by Michael Josh Villanueva from The Philippines, used under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license via Wikimedia Commons
Art
One’s experience of art is subjective as individual tastes differ. And yet, if we are to claim that some artworks are better than others, or explain why some artworks stand the test of time and are valued by generations, we need to refer to some standards by which to judge them.
DR. LAURA D’OLIMIO, THE ETHICS CENTRE
What makes something “art”? “Art is in the eye of the beholder,” that is, subjective, but the observer experiences art. Art influences us and moves us. It catches our attention and begs us to notice. It tries to provoke a reaction – positive or negative.
If all this is true, how do we “measure” art? How do we say whether or not art is “high quality” or “poor quality”?
In the case of calligraphy, a functional art, we have rules to follow.
Read more in part 2: Calligraphy as an Art Form: The Rules of Calligraphy
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