About Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a Greek word and means beautiful writing.
Man has used writing as a means of communication for thousands of years. The first alphabets within the Western art of writing developed in Phoenicia about 1,200 BC. These letter forms were further developed by the Greeks and the Etruscans, and we are most familiar with them in their Roman version.
Even today we describe our capital letters as Roman letters. The Roman alphabet is an important foundation for the further development within the art of writing, and several of the forms of writing that developed over the centuries can be seen as variants of these.
Roman capitals developed into various uncial forms (c. 300–700 AD) and further on to Calrolingean miniscules (c. 800–1000 AD). With the Carolingean miniscule (Charlemagne's form of writing), we get a writing consisting purely of miniscules. This writing continues to develop into the various Gothic forms (c. 1000–1400).
The Italian Renaissance of the 1400s awakens a strong interest in ancient culture. The writing of the Renaissance is called Humanist-antiqua or Renaissance-antiqua, and is a modified version of the Carolingean miniscule. This is also the period of the Cancelleresca hand, which is an italic form of the antiqua hand. This hand is also called italic.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, there is a renewed interest in calligraphy with pioneers like Edward Johnston in Britain, Rudolf Koch in Germany and Rudolf von Larisch in Austria.
In recent years calligraphy has developed into an independent art form.
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