The Art of Writing - From Ancient Symbols to Modern Calligraphy

Writing or writing represents a system of social communication using conventional graphic signs through which the sounds or words of a language are represented. Throughout history, we can talk about several types of writing. Each writing was based on a figurative representation, that is, man described reality through pictographic writing , which were a series of conventional graphic symbols . In a first phase, the drawn message did not correspond to the forms of speech. However, in the next stage, that of ideographic writing, the image or graphic sign, not only designated the object in question but also the word with which it could be associated. Later, the need to represent words that could not be suggested by images led to the emergence of the so-called phonetization , the principle of which consisted in attributing phonetic values ​​to signs, thus developing complex speech systems.

1. Pictograms, cuneiform and hieroglyphs :The first writing systems appeared in the Near East, the Sumerians, discovered in southernMesopotamia(circa 3100 BC). In the tablets discovered atUruk, we can clearly see the transition from pictograms to cuneiform. In Egyptian writing we see the same transformations from pictograms to hieroglyphs. The Greeks would later be the first to lay the foundations ofalphabetic writing. In Ancient Rome, the so-calledcapital writing, consisting of capital letters especially for inscriptions on stone or metal, separating words from each other by dots. The Romans were the first to use shorthand.

2. EUROPE – Latin Middle Ages .Now, somewhere in the 11th century, the separation of words by white spaces appears. Parchment was also used as a writing medium, which when rolled into long sheets was calledvolumen, from which the wordvolumeof today is derived. In medieval writings, several types of characters are found:square capitals– which were elegant letters, with regular, symmetrical shapes,rustic capitals– which were more rounded and less neat. Also used wererustic actuarial capitals, which were found in the writing of public documents, andcursive capitals, which appeared in manuscripts for lapidary, rapid notations. Starting with the 5th century, minuscules were also introduced, which developed in Italy in the newly created states. Thus we have Lombard minuscules, in Spain we have Visigothic minuscules (8th-12th centuries), and in France in the 7th century we have Merovingian minuscules, and after Charlemagne ascended the throne, Carolingian minuscules were used. Then, entering the Gothic period, Gothic minuscules were also born.

3. Cyrillic script. It includes two stages: that ofthe Glagolitic alphabet(which is the first Slavic alphabet) which is based on the Greek minuscule script from the 9th century. However, it had a short existence, due to the fact that it was not practical, in the 10th century it was replaced by theCyrillic script. Cyril – or Constantine by his lay name – was a Greek missionary sent by the Byzantine Empire to Moravia, being the one from whom the Cyrillic script takes its name. It developed somewhere starting from the 9th century. The Cyrillic alphabet was also used in the Romanian Countries, especially in religious books.

4. Chinese writing. In China, brush and ink were used for writing, as in Egypt, either on soft materials such as silk or sometimes on more unusual materials such as bone, bronze or even tortoise shell. The first inscriptions in Chinese writing date back to 1500 BC, presenting a system of ideograms that was graphically different from those in Mesopotamia or Egypt. In the early stages of Chinese writing, numerous changes and differentiations in the form of signs took place.

5. Arabic script. The Arabic alphabet is a system used by many languages ​​in Asia and Africa, including Arabic, Urdu, and Persian, and is the second most widely used alphabet in the world, after the Latin alphabet. The Arabic script is derived from a cursive form ofthe Nabataean alphabet, created by the Christians of Hirah in the 4th–5th centuries AD. With the expansion of Islam, this alphabet was adopted by many other languages, even non-Semitic, including: Persian, Urdu,PashtoMalay, Hausa, Mande, Swahili, Brahui, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijani, Kurdish. language used this alphabet until the reforms of Kemal Ataturk.The Arabic scriptis a ligature and cursive script. The letters have different forms depending on the context (depending on their position in the word:isolated form,medial,finalform ).

6. Mayan script. There is an alphabet of 800 Mayan hieroglyphs. Mayan script has about 550 signs orglyphsthat represent whole words and about 150 signs that represent syllables. About 100 hieroglyphs have also been identified that represent place names and the names of gods. About 300 hieroglyphs were in common use. Examples of writing have been found carved into stone and tree bark, wood, jade, pottery, and in a few manuscripts in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Many syllables can be represented by a symbol. The writing is usually found in paired vertical columns that read from left to right and top to bottom in a zigzag pattern.

Today the art of calligraphy or the art of rendering letters in the most elegant and harmonious way is in great demand. Today's techniques allow for numerous expressions, on a multitude of surfaces. Here are some images with examples of calligraphic art: