History of Calligraphy

Calligraphy can be traced back to the caveman, where the form of communication consisted of paintings on the walls of caves and taverns, since their speech was limited to grunts and groans. Over a period of time and as human race began to develop; the drawing became more intricate and detailed as you can see by the style of the Egyptians. The Egyptians created the well known hieroglyphics around 3500 BC which were incised inside tombs or painted with brushes on papyrus paper.

Next were the Phoenicians who were believed to have developed the first alphabet and writing system somewhere around 1000 BC. Because the Phoenicians were sailors and widely traveled the seas, they openly shared their writing and alphabet system at the many ports that they visited. The Greeks were the most likely influenced by this new system which the later developed into their own unique form of writing, which was later used by the Romans in 850 BC who used this to develop the Latin language.

In the middle ages the churches of Europe and the monks that housed there were mainly the only members of society at that time that were literate. Therefore, since nothing was better than the word of God, the monks took it upon themselves to carefully transcribe ancient texts into decorative books for the high-ranking members of the church and the royalty. Because paper was expensive, the monks wrote narrower lines so that they could fit more words onto the paper. This later came to be known as the Gothic style that was used through the middle ages.

During the 15th century the invention of the printing press played a major affect on calligraphy. While bibles could be printed at a greater speed, the printing press still had no affect on letter writing. The Renaissance era saw another form of calligraphy, with the Italians inventing the italic script that soon became the most widely used in Europe.

The 17th found calligraphy at a low when the coming of engraved cooper plates allowed the printing of fine lines that were more keyed to italic script.

Calligraphy also suffered in 19th century when the flat-edged pen was replaced with the fountain and steel pen, due to the fact that the new round tipped pens made it hard to achieve the special curves that calligraphy required. If not for the fact that a British poet and artist name William Morris reintroduced the flat edge pen into circulation, calligraphy would almost be an art of the past.

Today in the 20th century, calligraphies biggest competition seems to be the computer. With the many different websites to choose that offer a wide variety of calligraphy selections it’s really easy to copy and print exactly what you need. But if it’s the real thing that you are looking for, the art of calligraphy can only be achieved through the use of pen and paper. Calligraphy after all is the art of letters on paper.

How to Master the Calligraphy Style of Writing

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