Caligraphy in 3D, 4th of March 2010

caligraphy whirl wind

Caligraphy is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner" (according to Wikipedia on 4th of March 2010, Mediavilla 1996). It is an art of handwriting that is an important part of culture of eastern Asia. The image below (taken from Wikipedia) shows a Chinese Xingshu style of handwriting that was quite common in the first centuries AD. Beautiful contours that flow, wave, but also cut through the space.

caligraphy xinshu chinese

My teacher Irena taught me to write nicely in the first four grades of primary school. As I grew up, the time got faster and my handwriting changed due to the need to write as much as possible in as short time as possible, but still - some remnants of the slow, primary school handwriting remained. To let your hand so that the ink flows naturally, to not stop, to not make stains and breaks in the contour, to make a line thicker and thinner, depending on the part of the symbol that is being written so that the symbol acquires almost three-dimensional characteristics. I said almost, because two-dimensional paper is the medium that defines this art. But, how would it look like if the movements of the brush could penetrate in the third dimension of space? An artist that uses its brush to freeze the contours in three-dimensional space... Caligraphy in 3D. And that's exactly the idea of this post. To show forms that such caligraphy could make. So let's start with this imagined alphabet. The opening image (the first one) shows the sign for whirlwind.

caligraphy butterfly

And then (the image above) we have a sign for a butterfly. Fairly obvious, but also quite liquid.

caligraphy willow

Willow (above). The wind made her all knotted because she got too sad and forgotten about the world.

caligraphy horse

Horse (above). Tightly knitted sign, known only to the master that can control both the brush that freezes space and the horse.

polyhedron 16

Woman (above). A sign that makes even the most advanced masters of 3D caligraphy insane, because it cannot be written neither in gentle nor in rigid style of writing. Its writing is the pinnacle of the 3D caligraphic art and can be written only by the masters that know that even the sharpest changes must soften, but also that the softest space contains the seed of harsh mountains.

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Last updated on 4th of March 2010.