Painting Nepal Art

Painting Nepal Art

Calligraphy is an artistic style of lettering. Aesthetics of this stylish lettering system helped it earn its place among all visual art forms. The historic perspective of its evolution as a technique as well as skill also supports its categorization among the art forms. It was initially a vehicle of preserving religious texts. But today it is a means of designer lettering for invitation cards of events, nameplates, memorial documents, and certificates, inscriptions on various media like stone or metal plates, fine art pieces and also for designing logos.

It has been evolved on different parts of the globe in different manners. The conspicuous lines of evolutions have been distinguished as Western, Middle Eastern and Oriental. While Western calligraphy has maintained a singular dimension of evolution, Middle Eastern calligraphy has two branches, viz, Islamic or Arabic and Persian and Oriental calligraphy has evolved differently over discreet geographic regions as China and its imperial occupations in Japan and Korea, as South Asia comprising India, Nepal and Tibet. The shape, size and colors used in lettering vary in each of the three evolutionary trends; so varies the tools.

Basically the Latin writing system has evolved into Western calligraphy. Yet there are lesser involvement of Greek and Cyrillic alphabet writing styles, too. The first formed calligraphy for Book of Gospels was Carolingian. It gradually transformed into Gothic with sharply pointed letters and its rounder yet heavy looking variation was Rotunda. The later was a favorite in Italy and Spain while the former was a preference for the rest of the Europe. Gutenberg's bible used the Gothic style.

The Middle Eastern styles are two distinct evolutionary lines. The older Persian style is eminent for its nail shaped lettering in horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions. It was developed during 6th century BC and continued to be used in monument inscriptions. After a millennium, with the advent of Arabic style it merged into the path of evolution of Arabic calligraphy. Arabic form is better known as Islamic form as it unites works of Islamic artists all over the globe. This has mainly been used to decorate ceilings and walls of mosques.

The Oriental Calligraphy has historically been dominated by Chinese forms. The evolutionary history of this art is rooted in ancient bone inscriptions with Jiaguwen characters whose brush-drawn counterparts sank into oblivion. Through the unification of the vast landmass, since pre-Christian era, different Chinese rulers attempted to regularize single Calligraphic form and styles all over the territory. But the culturally variant political unit spread over the vast landmass kept on practising local forms, even informally.

Indian Calligraphy was initiated during the 2nd Century BC, during the reign of Asoka by introduction of Brahmi and Kharoshi scripts. They were chiefly used in stone inscriptions. Nepalese style is a much younger than other styles over the globe. It started with the spread of Mahayana and Bajrayana sects of Buddhism. But the original style has been derived into many forms which later on migrated to distant parts of South and South-east Asia. Tibetan Calligraphy inherited India scripts. They are evidently found on Buddhist prayer wheels even today.

Tools differs widely between Western and oriental world. While Western world has chosen pens of flat and round nibs and occasionally brushes, the Oriental practitioners preferred to use brushes of different kinds of hairs. The later creates variations in outputs using different bases. However, both the schools subscribed to ink as the sole medium. Contemporary western world is empowered with pens of ink cartridges.

Please visit Private Art Museum at art gallery Mumbai to read more on Calligraphy.