Nikolai Makarov

Beauty of Calligraphy

Calligraphy is an Eye Opener.

Everything is calligraphic around us — the simplest things and phenomena, certain life situations. Curves of grass, traces of car wheels on the first snow, splashes on bitumen, a tentative brush stroke of a beginner house painter, mixed up telephone lines, ink slopped out from a flask. Everything in the world has its sign. And everything that surrounds us is a sort of writing we study to make out gradually.

Calligraphy is the shortest and most expressive way to convey a message, an idea, an impression. It is energetic and impetuous. It contains the spirit and the movement of time, the feeling of live breathing. Calligraphy is temperamental, expressive but fabulously graceful.

All cards are open in calligraphic writing, everything is on the surface, which results in the mind-bending effect, the breath-taking environment. Calligraphy is a process that is manageable and not manageable, predictable and unpredictable at once. There are many occasional things that should be noted in calligraphy.

Calligraphy is an endless field for experiment, search and discoveries. Various materials, tools and writing methods are applicable in it – from academic, classical writing using a wide-end tool (calam or pen) to graffiti using paint sprays. Its means are available and are always within reach. And it is sometimes the hand itself, and the inscription is a trade on steamy windows.

Shorthand is the most vital type of writing (brzopis, as our /Bulgarian brothers say, curiously and precisely; or painting as we say, but in another case). Calligraphy and shorthand are almost identical notions. In any event, writing is a continuous course, flow, flight. Good calligraphy is often perceived as such easy and free flight. There is a feeling that it is made in one breath. This is wonderful, and it should be so. Inadvertency is an organic property of calligraphy. But the way to this light and precise solution can be much longer. Calligraphy is a paper leaf fall, patient search for the right solution and the absolute dissatisfaction with what has been done.

Calligraphy is a wonderful visual art. It contains much of the reflective material – it is the smooth movements of pen or brush, the paint trace that follows them, the blots and splashes, the fanciful sags, diffuse whirls that spread on moistened surface, this is the sharpened edge of stroke and furrows left by the drying brush.

Calligraphy is not only a pretext for communication – it is its method. It’s a sort of a healing method that helps tune oneself internally. It won’t take much – just let oneself get involved in this exciting and most amusing process.