Calligraphy |
Western Calligraphy (from Greek κάλλος kallos "beauty" + γραφή graphẽ "writing") is the art of writing.[1] A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner."[2] The story of writing is one of aesthetic development framed within the technical skills, transmission speed(s) and material limitations of a person, time and place.[3] A style of writing is described as a script, hand or alphabet.[4]
Calligraphy ranges from functional hand lettered inscriptions and designs to fine art pieces where the abstract expression of the handwritten mark may or may not supersede the legibility of the letters.[5] Classical calligraphy differs from typography and non-classical hand-lettering, though a calligrapher may create all of these; characters are historically disciplined yet fluid and spontaneous, improvised at the moment of writing.[6]
Calligraphy continues to flourish in the forms of wedding and event invitations, font design/ typography, original hand-lettered logo design, religious art, various announcements/ graphic design/ commissioned calligraphic art, cut stone inscriptions and memorial documents. Also props and moving images for film and television, testimonials, birth and death certificates/maps, and other works involving writing.[7]
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Western calligraphy is the calligraphy of the Latin writing system, and to a lesser degree the Greek and Cyrillic writing systems.[8] Early alphabets had evolved by about 3000 BC. From the Etruscan alphabet evolved the Latin alphabet. Capital letters (majuscules) emerged first, followed by the invention of lower case letters (minuscules) in the Carolingian period.[5] The history of lettering records many excursions into historical obscurity and disuse as well as elaborating the story of what gave rise to contemporary print.[9]
Long, heavy rolls of papyrus were replaced by the Romans with the first books, initially simply folded pages of parchment made from animal skins. Reed pens were replaced by quill pens.[10]
Christian churches promoted the development of writing through the prolific copying of the Bible, particularly the New Testament and other sacred texts.[11] Two distinct styles of writing known as uncial and half-uncial (from the Latin "uncia," or "inch") developed from a variety of Roman bookhands.[12] The 7th-9th centuries in northern Europe were the heyday of Celtic illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Durrow, Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.[13]
Charlemagne's devotion to improved scholarship resulted in the recruiting of "a crowd of scribes", according to Alcuin, the Abbot of York.[14] Alcuin developed the style known as the Caroline or Carolingian minuscule. The first manuscript in this hand was the Godescalc Evangelistary (finished 783) — a Gospel book written by the scribe Godescalc.[15] Carolingian remains the one progenitor hand from which modern booktype descends.[16]
Blackletter (also known as Gothic) and its variation Rotunda, gradually developed from the Carolingian hand during the 12th century. Over the next three centuries, the scribes in northern Europe used an ever more compressed and spiky form of Gothic. Those in Italy and Spain preferred the rounder but still heavy-looking Rotunda. During the 15th century, Italian scribes returned to the Roman and Carolingian models of writing and designed the Italic hand, also called Chancery cursive, and Roman bookhand. These three hands — Gothic, Italic, and Roman bookhand — became the models for printed letters. Johannes Gutenberg used Gothic to print his famous Bible, but the lighter-weight Italic and Roman bookhand have since become the standard.
During the Middle Ages, hundreds of thousands of manuscripts were produced:[17] some illuminated with gold and fine painting, some illustrated with line drawings, and some just textbooks.[18]
In the mid 1600s French officials, flooded with documents written in various hands and varied levels of skill, complained that many such documents were beyond their ability to decipher. The Office of the Financier thereupon restricted all legal documents to three hands, namely the Coulée, the Rhonde, and a Speed Hand sometimes simply called the Bastarde.[19]
While there were many great French masters at the time, the most influential in proposing these hands was Louis Babedor, who published Les Escitures Financières Et Italienne Bastarde Dans Leur Naturel circa 1650.[19]
With the destruction of the Camera Apostolica during the sack of Rome (1527), the capitol for writing masters moved to Southern France. By 1600, the Italic Cursiva began to be replaced by a technological refinement, the Italic Chancery Circumflessa, which in turn fathered the Rhonde and later English Roundhand.[19]
In England, Ayres and Shelly popularized the Round Hand while Snell is noted for his reaction to them, and warnings of restraint and proportionality. Still Edward Crocker began publishing his copybooks 40 years before the aforementioned.[19]
The rise of printing from movable type in the mid-15th century did not mean the end of calligraphy.[20] Illuminated manuscripts declined, however, after printing became ubiquitous.[21] Conventionally the histories of Copperplate hands have represented such writing to have been with a sharp pointed nib instead of the broad-edged one used in most calligraphic writing. This so called "Copperplate Myth" represents the name to come from the sharp lines of the writing style resembling the etches of engraved copper printing plates.[22] It is unlikely that this picture represents the historical origins of the term accurately, but is rather more reflective of later 19th and 20th century antipecuniary comfort of the Arts and Crafts movement participants.[23] It is most likely that what is today written with pointed steel nibs[24] began stylistic life before the 1820s with a broad edged quill and a number of period pen hold, posture and arm position variations to facilitate the fine lines.[25] Hence there was likely a gradual change in historic writing practices and a reorientation of the vocation and place of writing rather than the elimination of the art.
At the end of the 19th century, the aesthetics and philosophy of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement appealed to many calligraphers, including Englishmen Edward Johnston and Eric Gill.[26] Johnston was introduced to 10th-century manuscripts,[27] at the Fitzherbert Museum by Sir Sidney Cockerell[28] and based his own calligraphy on them. Johnston and his students were to redefine, revive, and popularise English broad-pen calligraphy.
The legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement includes considerable myth.[29] Published in 1906, Johnston’s best known work Writing, Illuminating & Lettering never used the terms “Foundational” or “Foundational Hand” for which he is most remembered. Johnston initially taught his students an uncial hand using a flat pen angle, but later taught his “foundational hand” using a slanted pen angle. He first referred to this hand as “Foundational Hand” in Plate 6 of his 1909 publication, Manuscript & Inscription Letters for Schools and Classes and for the Use of Craftsmen. The Johnston Typeface (commissioned in 1916) became the basis for the London Underground signage and continues today in the New Johnston typeface, revised in 1988.[30]
At about the same time as Johnston, Austrian Rudolf Larisch was teaching lettering at the Vienna School of Art and published six lettering books that greatly influenced German-speaking calligraphers. Because German-speaking countries had not abandoned the Gothic hand in printing, Gothic also had a powerful effect on their styles. Rudolf Koch was a friend and younger contemporary of Larisch. Koch's books, type designs, and teaching made him one of the most influential calligraphers of the 20th century in northern Europe and later in the U.S. Larisch and Koch taught and inspired many European calligraphers, notably Friedrich Neugebauer, Karlgeorg Hoefer, and Hermann Zapf.[31]
Graily Hewitt was most responsible for the revival of the art of gilding, both by contributing to Writing, Illuminating and Lettering (Chapter 9 Appendix) and through his own publications, most notably Lettering for Students & Craftsmen (1930). Hewitt is not without both critics[32] and supporters[33] in his rendering of Cennino Cennini's medieval gesso recipes.[34] Donald Jackson, a British calligrapher, has sourced his gesso recipes from earlier centuries a number of which are not presently in English translation.[35] Graily Hewitt created the patent announcing the award to Prince Philip of the title of Duke of Edinburgh on November 19, 1947, the day before his marriage to Queen Elizabeth.[36]
Many typefaces are based on historical hands, such as Blackletter (including Fraktur), Lombardic, Uncial, Italic, and Roundhand.
Calligraphy today finds diverse applications. These include graphic design, logo design, type design, paintings, scholarship, maps, menus, greeting cards, invitations, legal documents, diplomas, cut stone inscriptions, memorial documents, props and moving images for film and television, business cards, and handmade presentations. Many calligraphers make their livelihood in the addressing of envelopes and invitations for public and private events including wedding stationery. Entry points exist for both children and adults via classes and instruction books.
The scope of the calligraphic art is more than pure antiquarian interest.[37] Johnston's legacy remains pivotal to the ambitions of perhaps most Western calligraphers:
“It is possible even now to go back to the child's - something like the early calligrapher's - point of view, and this is the only healthy one for any fine beginning: to this nothing can be added; all Rules must give way to Truth and Freedom.”[38]
The multi-million dollar Saint John's Bible project for the 21st century has engaged Donald Jackson with an international scriptorium and is nearing completion. It is designed as a 21st century illuminated Bible, executed with both ancient and modern tools and techniques. The earlier 20th-century "Bulley Bible" was executed by a student of Edward Johnston's, Edward Bulley.[39]
The digital era has facilitated the creation and dissemination of thousands of new and historically styled fonts. Calligraphy gives unique expression to every individual letterform within a design layout which is not the strength of typeface technologies no matter their sophistication.[40] The usefulness of the digital medium to the calligrapher is not limited to the computer layout of the new Saint John's Bible prior to working by hand.[41] Writing directly in the digital medium is facilitated via graphics tablets (e.g. Wacom and Toshiba) and is expected to grow in use with the introduction of Microsoft Windows Vista operating system ("Vista Pen Flicks") in 2007. Apple Inc. introduced a similar "shorthand" facility in their Tiger operating system in 2005. Graphics tablets facilitate calligraphic design work more than large size art pieces.[42] The internet supports a number of online communities of calligraphers and hand lettering artists.
Other Western sub-styles and their respective century of appearance: