Calligraphy Styles

Calligraphy is an ancient style of writing which is still being practiced all across the world. The word calligraphy has been derived from Greek words, kallos and graphe meaning beautiful and to write, respectively. Hence commonly referred to as beautiful handwriting, calligraphy is a kind of visual art that is very different from normal writing and requires great skills to pen down each letter. In fact, to create each letter a special set of strokes and line are made using pens having metal nibs. In earlier times before the invention of printing press, books were handwritten through calligraphy wherein skilled scribes used quills dipped in ink to write the text on vellum or parchment paper. Despite the advent of printing press and today's computer fonts that come in all possible styles, calligraphy or hand written text has its own allure or fascination in the hearts and minds of people who love writing. There are many people who also like the look of calligraphy styles for tattoos. Hence, let us take a look at some of the most common calligraphy styles of writing that are popular even today.

Types of Calligraphy Styles

There are mainly four common styles of calligraphy, including Western, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. Each style has its own unique look and ways to adorn letters and symbols.

Western Calligraphy: Western style calligraphy or calligraphy of Latin writing system focuses on the Roman alphabet and includes many sub styles of lettering like antiqua, blackletter, chancery hand and copperplate.

• Antiqua: Also termed as Old Style, antiqua is the Germanic opposite of blackletter which includes strokes of uniform thickness and slanted serifs.
• Blackletter: Also called Gothic script, blackletter is another style of calligraphy that comprises tall, narrow letters formed of sharp, straight and angular lines. One of the most well-known forms of blackletter is textualis.
• Chancery Hand: Chancery hand is the calligraphy style which forms the manuscript origin of the modern italic typeface as well as the model for the Zapfino font.
• Copperplate Script: Being one of the easiest to learn styles, copperplate style has an exceptionally elegant appearance and is created using sharp-pointed nib in place of the commonly used flat nib. Nine pen strokes create most of the lowercase letters while the upper case letters are formed using variety of different strokes.

Arabic Calligraphy: Another popular calligraphy style is Arabic calligraphy which is written from left to right, and is mainly associated with Islamic art and religion and the Arabic language. It comprises 28 letter Semitic alphabets and 18 letter shapes. Moreover, the proverbs and passages from the holy book of Islam, Qur'an are still sources for Islamic or Arabic calligraphy.

Chinese Calligraphy: Chinese calligraphy is an important element of East Asian Culture, where in ink brushes are used to write Chinese letters. Xíngshū (semi-cursive or running script) and Cǎoshū (cursive or grass script) are the two main cursive styles of Chinese calligraphy that are less constrained and faster and create characters that are more perceptible.

Japanese Calligraphy: Just like Chinese calligraphy, Japanese style of calligraphy also includes characters and symbols in place of letters and is well-known for its style, beauty and meaningful characters. Tensho, reisho, kanji, gyosho or sosho style is used to form strokes of each character. However, Japanese calligraphy comprises three main styles: kaisho or shinsho (a block style with few movements), gypusho (a median style which is not very firm or flowing as the other two styles) and sousho (a sweeping or flowing style consisting swift strokes).

To sum up, we can say that calligraphy is an art of stylized lettering techniques that make each letter come alive through variations in style, size, technique and color. From being once a main source of recording information, this technique is now used for lettering on many special occasions. Today many professional calligraphers employ this beautiful art of writing to do lettering for wedding invitations, special announcements, awards, marriage and birth certificates, place cards or large lettering for posters and signs. Hence, from classic calligraphy styles that incorporate sleek line to sophisticated flourishes and decorative lettering, calligraphy has an endless charisma that can never fade with time and its intricate styles will be practiced for generations to come.