City. News: The Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy

The art of beautiful handwriting. Today the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy has celebrated its 1st anniversary. This is the only museum in Russia where the best samples of this unusual art are collected.

Among the exhibits, there are paintings and rare manuscripts, and old writing utensils and materials: pens and brushes.

The collection of the museum has extended today, on its anniversary, with two more pieces of chef d’oeuvre.

You will not see a beautiful landscape painting or a still life, but letters and numbers only. However, they are also works of art. The museum of calligraphy received two gifts on its anniversary. A calligrapher from Israel Avraham Borshevsky presented a World Famous Mezuzah: a sacred scroll of parchment, inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah. The work of calligraphy is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. This is the world’s largest Mezuzah.

Aharon Gurevich, Chief Rabbi of Russia:

A mezuzah is a sacred item, amulet, affixed to the doorframe in a Jewish home. If a letter may be microscopically small on that subject used in private life, the letter on the World Famous Mezuzah is huge. Nevertheless, the text is completely repeated in correspondence with all canons, which must be performed in a mezuzah.
Another exclusive gift was a draft of the handwritten copy of the National Anthem of the Russian Federation. Silvio Berlusconi presented this handwritten copy of the Anthem to Dmitry Medvedev at the G8 summit this summer in July. Yevgeny Drobyazin said he did not even know who the person he was making the artwork for.

Yevgeny Drobyazin, calligrapher:

That was an urgent work, because in our case three weeks is a very short period of time. Any professional does not like urgent work, because if the work takes its natural time, a person may be responsible for its quality. If it is urgent, we have to accept some losses.
Today, the museum of calligraphy has over a hundred exhibits. Yuri Koverdyayev believes that the art of calligraphy continues to develop even in the age of computers.

Yuri Koverdyayev, calligrapher:

For example, I use a computer to mock up. I have to do a list, I know how I would write it, but I just have to draft the sheet. So I just take a computer, make the draft, edit and correct it and then I make a mock-up and on this basis I write on a sheet which will become the work.

Everyone will be able to see the World Famous Mezuzah and the draft of the copy of the National Anthem of the Russian Federation in two months at the exhibition in Sokolniki. The exposition will present works from over 30 countries.

Oleg Fomin, Vladimir Godunov and Nikolai Astakhov, the program City.

Source: 3 channel website

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