Re: SignWriting

Philippe Verdy <verdy_p_at_wanadoo.fr> wrote:
 |2013/4/22 Steffen Daode <sdaoden_at_gmail.com>
 |> 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.
 |
 |Your comlement is useful. Thanks. I just focused very superficially on the
 |meaning of calligraphy as an art, because for the rest of the details I was
 |not trained enough on the subject.

…nothing but a juicy complement, to end up with a rich green
pasture of calligraphic possibilities.
Regarding world weariness there is surely room for improvement in
a sentence like

 |>|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.

Hansel and Gretel would never have found a Burger Palace without
a nice big billboard! Thus this shouldn't be underrated.

--steffen
Received on Mon Apr 22 2013 - 09:36:48 CDT