Caligraphy

Calligraphy is the word used for a beautiful form of writing. The origin of the word lies in the Greek language where “callos” means beauty and “graphy” means writing. The ancients were the first to discover and cherish the beauty and excitement of exquisite writing and practiced extensively on that field, creating calligraphy alphabets and works that looked more like art pieces than regular scripts. It is really interesting to see how writing evolved from the initial glyphs and drawings on the stone to a normal alphabet as we know it today. The Egyptians were the first to use the pictorial drawings and developed them to hieroglyphic art, which was the first type of calligraphy alphabet. The Phoenicians came later, giving some more minimalistic form to the written language and then the Greeks adopted their style in writing and evolved the alphabet in such a way that actually invented the closer to the modern alphabet way of writing.  Consequently, they gave birth to the calligraphic alphabet and writing methods.

Until 500 years ago, when typography and printing was not yet discovered, calligraphy alphabet was the one used in order to write the books that were owned by people or sold in the markets. Scribers were used extensively, both by publishing companies, as well as by the official church that was the main book distributor until some centuries ago. Everything was made by hand of course, and professionals were working in scriptoriums, creating their alphabet and calligraphy language using quills and inks, working on materials such as parchment. Black letter and Carolingian were the most popular types of calligraphy fonts, as we would say today, for a long period of time during the medieval ages. It is still really exciting to see how some known texts were originally written using the method of calligraphy. Not used to such a writing, sometimes it is hard to recognize what exactly is written, but we cannot help but admire the beauty and symmetry of the scripts and words.

Today when we talk about calligraphy we mostly refer to the Roman, Arabic and Oriental calligraphy alphabets. It is still used as a handwriting method, especially when a script needs to be more official and exceptional, however with the invention of modern printing press and computers, the calligraphic alphabet reached an entirely new level. Arrays of calligraphy fonts and types exist now, as a method of enhancing scripts and ornamenting books and letters. Calligraphy flourishes still nowadays, however it is not any more a method of preservation of literature, but mostly an artistic and sophisticated writing method, impressive and fascinating as always.