Re: SignWriting

From: Steffen <sdaoden_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:36:13 +0200

Philippe Verdy <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr> wrote:
 |Plus an extra knowledge masterized by experts, perceived as artists. This
 |art is called calligraphy, and calligraphy exists for all writing systems.
 |It is particluarly developed as an art by writers of Chinese and Arabic. It
 |was more important in the past for the Latin/Cyrillic/Greek alphabetic
 |family of script but it has not completely disappeared and it is still used
 |for the production of corporate logos, advertizing, and identifiation of
 |products and trademarks, so I would not say that calligraphy is dead in the
 |alphabetic script. Calligraphy is still considered bery important in Indic
 |abugidas as well (notably for transcriptions of religious texts, e.g. in
 |the Tibetan script)

In my superficial and unaware understanding Chinese calligraphy
has always existed as another form of meditation and a way to
transport personal and philosophical experiences, and there seems
to be a special kind of „painting“ with a divided pictorial
representation of an emphatic impression (of the artist), in a
form of calligraphy bundled with a painted image; e.g., a
parchment with a tree on the left side, and calligraphy on the
right.

I don't think this can be compared to what the western world knows
as „calligraphie“, e.g., in Germany elementary school kids become
graded for the prettiness of their handwriting. But it is surely
also a matter of whether the calligrapher walks on four, two or
three legs. Still, there surely is a philosophical difference.
I do agree with you that this is a great pity, however.

--steffen
Received on Mon Apr 22 2013 - 04:53:36 CDT

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