Concept
Calligraphy
Overview
Calligraphy (from Ancient Greek καλλιγραφία (kalligraphía) 'beautiful writing') is fine handwriting taken to the level of visual art. It involves the design and execution of lettering or characters using a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Classical calligraphy differs from type design and non-classical hand-lettering, though some calligraphers may practice both.
In East Asia and the Islamic world, calligraphy is a prominent element in art. Its visual form is often influenced by the meaning of the text as a whole or the individual words.
Modern Western calligraphy is used in announcements, including wedding invitations, as well as in type and computer font design, letter cutting, hand-lettered logo design, religious art, graphic design, commissioned calligraphic art, carved stone inscriptions, and memorial documents. It is also used for theatrical props, moving images for film and television, testimonials, birth and death certificates, maps, and other written works.
Modern Western calligraphy incorporates a wide range of styles, from functional inscriptions and designs to fine art pieces, where the legibility of letters varies.
Contemporary calligraphy has been defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner".
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
And when we have perfected the classification of things, we shall give them names, and see whether, as in the case of letters, there are any classes to which they may be all referred (cf. Phaedrus); and hence we shall see their natures, and see, too, whether they have in them classes as there are in the letters; and when we have well considered all this, we shall know how to apply them to what they resemble—whether…
Plato, Cratylus
States what Calligraphy is.
Ants appear to be able to communicate a certain amount of information by means of their antennae. Probably writing itself, which we now regard as merely a way of representing speech, was originally an independent language, as it has remained to this day in China. Writing seems to have consisted originally of pictures, which gradually became conventionalized, coming in time to represent syllables, and finally letters…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
States what Calligraphy is.
It might likewise be a matter of enquiry, whether a _numerous_ style is formed entirely by the use of numbers, or not also in some measure by the harmonious juncture of our words, and the application of certain figurative forms of expression; --and, in the next place, whether each of these has not its peculiar province, so that number may regard the time or _quantity_, composition the _sound_, and figurative…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators
States what Calligraphy is.
Philosophers who discussed Calligraphy
Related ideas
- Persian language
- Alcuin
- India
- Jainism
- Eritrea
- Language
- Latin alphabet
- Ethiopia
- Islamic world
- Mongolia
- Muslims
- East Asia
- UNESCO
- Ottoman Empire
- Pakistan
- Religious text
- Philippines
- Writing system
- Bhutan
- Mughal Empire
- Roman Empire
- Spain
- Sanskrit
- Spirituality
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.