Home > Kaladarsana > Exhibitions > Akara

AKARA

The Quest for Perfect Form

Newsletter

'The origin of Penmanship, or first invention of Letters, has been much controverted; but next to God, the Author and Giver of all Science, it seems rational to think it was derived from Adam.'

Joseph Champion

in 'The Parallel or Comparative Penmanship Exemplified' (1750)

...The above statement sums up, in a sense, the ethos of the Graeco-Roman alphabet. This alphabet traces its ancestry to the North-Semitic and Phoenician scripts - borrowed, added to, and mutated by the Greeks in about the 8th century B.C. It then passed on through the Etruscans to the Romans, who perfected the letterforms to ideal proportions. The Trajan column, with square capital letters gave way to the freer, more economical, rustic capitals and uncials. These were called book-hands of the Roman Empire, and used for valued works.

The uncial, seen in the oldest copies of the Bible, was the literary hand from the 5th to the 8th centuries. It is, says Alfred Fairbank, '...truly a penman's letter and owes its form to the quill and to vellum -- the best pen and the best writing material for a book-script.'

From these capitals or majuscules, developed cursive or informal hands, written more quickly, which ultimately evolved into the miniscule -- small or lower case letters, as distinct from capitals.

In the 6th and 7th centuries, half-uncials, derived from uncials, spread to Ireland along with Christianity. It is the style used in the incomparable Book of Kells. Irish monks took their culture to England where an insular half-uncial became the national book-hand.

On the Continent, various other regional and mixed hands emerged: the Visigothic (Spain), Beneventan (South Italy), Merovingian (France). The Caroline Miniscule was named after Charlemagne who, though himself unlettered, valued the written word and brought the English abbot Alcuin of York to his kingdom. The Gothic scripts of the Middle Ages, having evolved from the Caroline, reflected the spirit of the times as did the architecture of that age: angular, precise, compressed, narrow, black. There are several versions of the Gothic letter.

With the Italian Renaissance, the humanists searched for and revived earlier Caroline hands: these were called 'humanistic'.

The invention of the printing press and movable type in the late 15th century led to the use and proliferation of all these lettering styles, copied and further developed. Venice, in particular, and Italy in general, were the important centres of activity. Great names in writing stand out: Ludovici Arrighi who produced the first writing manual in 1522; Tagliente who wrote a similar, very popular book; Palatino who published a veritable treasury of scripts.

Other countries such as Spain and France and England followed suit with books about, and variations of, the established hand.

With the change in techniques from engraved woodblock to engraved copperplates, scripts came closer to handwriting, free of excessive angularity. Ultimately, this led to the use of the pen and the copy book, and the development of flowing writing, which we, in India, saw as the 'Copperplate' or English 'running hand'.

The great revival of Graeco-Roman Calligraphy was initiated in the 19th century by William Morris, poet, artist-craftsman, who produced illuminated manuscripts in the medieval manner. The study of handwriting as a fine art began during this time.

Textura, the culmination of the 'Black Letter' style, achieved by the 15th century, towards the end of the Gothic era. It is an extreme use of letters primarily as a design element, for visual effect, creating a heavy woven texture which gives this style its name.

The general trend accentuating verticals, minimising horizontals and white spaces is carried to its limits in the Textus Prescissus and Textus Quadratus variations; a series of straight lines replaces curves, a device to cut down space between the strokes, increasing the overall impression of blackness and heaviness. This effect is further strengthened by the frequent use of ligatures, by vertical letter compression, and word abbreviation. Often the letters actually rub shsoulders and touch elbows and feet! This leads to some confusion in letter distinction.

Though hard to read, Textura is a highly ornamental, visually arresting style.

[ Home | Search  |  Contact Us |  Index ]

[ Kaladarsana | List of Exhibition | Lectures | Seminars/Conferences/Workshops ]