Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Calligraphy
Like many people in the world today I spend most of my time in front of a computer screen tapping away at some document or another. The product of all this key board bashing these days is usually a quote or, as in this case, some idle chatter, but whatever, it comes out looking exactly the same. Uniform script all rigidly controlled, no ink blots or wavy lines to attract the eye. So in a relatively idle moment I looked up the history of calligraphy on the web, and as usual got a load of stuff that bore no resemblance to what I was looking for. What is happening to Google? My search methods may not be the most sophisticated but there were certainly some unrelated websites answering to my query on the history of calligraphy so I switched to Ask Jeeves who did a little better. This is a digest of what I found: ‘Calligraphy evolved from ancient pictograms and reached its zenith in Asia to become the most sophisticated art form allowing the calligrapher great artistic freedom of expression. In the west, on the other hand, calligraphers are craftsmen and their best work is highly structured and uniform.’ Now I don’t necessarily agree with that; just consider the Book of Kells, is this not very beautiful and the product of an artist?
What has all this to do with printed pens? A lot, because a few days back I was waxing lyrical about fountain pens and proper ink and paper, which is fine, but no good if one has forgotten how to handle them! My handwriting resembles a Rorsach ink blot these days, or the meandering of an intoxicated spider, so pity the recipient of any of my notes especially if he or she spends time trying to decipher the legend ‘Gone to Lunch, back after 2.00pm’!!
