Preface: Calligraphy
When I was a student, I loved having beautiful handwriting. So I used every opportunity to make my writing more beautiful. In the second year of middle school (seventh grade), when I attended Shahid Bahonar School in Bibalan, Mr. Haghshenas was our English teacher. God rest his memory! He had very beautiful handwriting. As far as I remember, he would write the dictation tests in one student’s notebook, then another student would copy it onto the blackboard, and the rest of us would write from that and take the test. Since I sat in the front row, I would hand my notebook to Mr. Haghshenas—so that afterward I could practice from his handwriting and improve my own.
In my first year of high school (ninth grade), Ehsan, one of the older students, had very beautiful handwriting and wrote his notes in a lovely broken (shekasteh) script. Using the notes as an excuse, I would borrow his notebooks from the previous year and practice writing with them. Beautiful handwriting gave me a good feeling.
Later, at my wife’s suggestion, we took a pen-calligraphy class together. It was very instructive. The chance to be together (amid all the work commitments) alongside proper calligraphy instruction left me with a fond memory of that class. I wished I’d had the opportunity to take such a class when I was younger.
Whenever I talked with others about calligraphy, a point they’d make was: “If I write patiently and without rushing, my handwriting is good, but if I hurry, it falls apart.” But I would think to myself that your handwriting should be beautiful whether you’re in a hurry or not. Circumstances may reduce the quality of your writing a little, but not so much that it turns into a scrawl. It goes without saying that I’m no expert calligrapher—this is just my personal impression and experience.
Although in today’s modern world there’s no longer any need to write by hand, that modest calligraphy skill of mine was lost too, for lack of “practice.” Even so, I still get excited when I see beautiful handwriting, and I find myself examining it like a work of art.
When I look back at the past, I can describe my experience of learning calligraphy like this:
- Beyond simply loving beautiful handwriting, my motivation to learn was that I didn’t want my writing to be a scrawl.
- Seeing beautiful handwriting and trying to copy and reproduce it was very effective in my learning, and it worked for me.
- When I see beautiful handwriting, even though I can’t write that way myself, I recognize that it’s “beautiful,” I get excited, and it enchants me.
Now my love of calligraphy has crystallized in me in a different form: a love of code calligraphy!
This post is an introduction to writing about some of my experiences with “calligraphy” in the world of programming. I hope in future posts to look at programming through this window and write about my experience. It would be wonderful if I could hear about your experiences too.
Selected quote:
We are known in the world by three names: literature, carpet, and calligraphy. Calligraphy exists within the other two arts as well. The small difference is that the illuminator works with pen, ink, and color, while the carpet weaver works with wool and cotton. Illumination is the very design of the carpet.
— Mohammad Salahshour, master of calligraphy
