Article about the Use of Calligraphy

In the end, the very day and the long-awaited-for time came when I am writing these lines, when the community expressed interest in the art of calligraphy and is willing to learn “everything and at once”. Yes, people demand everything and at once these days – it is how civilization urbanization, and moreover, Internetization, brought us up. You know what I am talking about. In the case of calligraphy, everything is so simple and so complex at once that this particular art can be called ingenious.

What can be simpler, more illustrative and more available to everybody, even to those who are partial to Life, than calligraphy? Here we would like to explain our standpoint, to track what originates from where. At first, it would be good to determine what we mean by calligraphy. This is a subject for a separate article, and in this case I will limit to my own definition that I usually give during my classes:

• Calligraphy is beautiful clarity
• A line or many lines drawn by hand, creating information and rhythmic structures

In this way, calligraphy combines cognitive nature and beauty. What does a human being learn through his hand? First of all, the laws of the nature that act similarly everywhere, including in himself/herself; because hands are mysteriously linked with the soul through the heart, and perhaps otherwise; it is difficult to understand but easy to see to anybody who has eyes… There is another pre-requisite, though: it takes time to observe and to learn. And what do all of us lack? Right you are, the time! That’s why calligraphy teaches us to interact with time and space with Self-Knowledge, of which wise men of all times and from all continents were talking about – and this, in turn, is topical for all people on Earth, because these skills enable everybody to fulfill his or her mission on Earth (it sounds with pathos but nothing can be done about that, the rest of the definitions are even more high-flown) — just his or her own mission, rather than the one imposed by someone somewhere with good intentions…

Calligraphy teaches us to look and to see, it is the most truthful of arts — because “no axe can cut out what a pen has written about”! You have just one attempt – and then more and more and more. The most valuable thing is that it never bores because there is space to grow and to develop in the calligraphic space, and there is a place for everybody.

And the only things you need is a Surface (any!!!!!), a Pen (any!!!!), an Intention (to imagine one’s writing as already written), and Determination (to put them on a surface with a pen by one’s own body, soul and spirit – by oneself); so indecent inscriptions on fences and walls in our cities are the subconscious thirst for calligraphic self-actualization in Russians. By the way, it is also a subject for a separate most curious article.

So it seems next to impossible to describe the world of calligraphy in words. But there is nothing simpler than to find oneself in it — see the previous paragraph: just take the writing materials, take along books as companions and patience as friends and start to lay your own way on a sheet of paper. If you know nothing at all, ask older guys.

They had taught penmanship in Russia before the 1970“s; they don’t do that anymore – what do we get? Dirty writing?

ALL children used to practice penmanship, and some of them continue this occupation till the end of their lives! And again, a subject for a separate article has appeared – but unfortunately, I am writing an article on another subject!

All considerations seem to be illuminating the mysterious planet of Calligraphy from different angles – the planet that used to stand in the shadow but that is appearing on the Russian horizon in all its magnificence. It can be welcome or ignored, just as many stars in the skies – but it shines with its eternal and warm light for us all!