Calligraphy

Q. What is it

A. Literally 'beautiful writing', from the Ancient Greek words kallos and graphia. It is an art of writing in which the form of the letters or characters is as important as the words they make.

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Q. When did it first develop

A. The earliest surviving examples of calligraphy are found in Egyptian papyri of the third millennium BC, but it is primarily associated with China, where it has flourished from the 4th century AD and is still a highly respected art form.

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Q. So, it's principally an Oriental tradition

A. Because brushes are used both for writing and painting, and the written word is a visual ideogram and not, as in alphabetic systems of writing, the equivalent of a sound by phonetic symbols, it is not surprising that China and Chinese-influenced cultures, such as Japan and Korea, should have developed an 'art' of writing. Each character becomes an beautiful abstract shape in itself; it is both an aesthetic composition and part of the sentence's flow. However, similar principals did develop in other parts of the world, too, particularly in the Islamic world.

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Q. Why did it develop there

A. In Islam the written word is accorded a special status as the medium of divine revelation. This and the fact that representational techniques are not permitted in religious art has meant that calligraphy developed in a number of rich and complex ways using a variety of elegant scripts, namely Farsi, Naskh, Kufi, Deewani, Req'aa and Thuluth. The calligraphic arts continue to be used not only in manuscripts but also as an important feature of architectural and other decoration, from ceramics to leather work.

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Q. What about Europe

A. In the Christian west, calligraphy flourished in the monasteries between the 6th and 15th centuries. When Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press, the need for skilled and decorative handwriting declined, but professional writing masters were still very much in demand up to the 19th century, when literacy began to increase.

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To make matters even more difficult for artistic scribes, by the 19th century the steel pen and fountain pen replaced the flat-edged pen. The rounded tip of these new pens made the special curves of calligraphy much more difficult to achieve.

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Q. Does calligraphy have a future as an art form

A. In the mid-19th century the British artist William Morris spearheaded a calligraphic revival in Europe and America, reintroducing the flat edged pen and elevating the act of writing to the art form of its past. This revival was given a further boost in the 20th century by Edward Johnston, whose Writing and Illuminating, and Lettering (1906) was a great success.

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In both the Islamic world and the Far East calligraphy remains popular and important competitions are held in both China and Japan every year, so its future there seems assured.

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By Simon Smith