How do the early Qur’anic calligraphers and the contemporary artists use Arabic text in different ways (consider line, color, text, organization, materials, etc.)?
How do the contemporary artists reimagine or transform Arabic calligraphy through their art? Should these contemporary artists be described as calligraphers? Why or why not?
Images and Videos:
Folio from a Qur’an Manuscript, 993 CE, Iran (Met, 40.164.5a,b)
1. Soraya Sayed’s The Pen & The Sword video installation of a 20th-century brass pen case and 3D technology.
2. Osman Waqilla’s Kaf ha ya ayn sad, 1998
This calligraphic page is inscribed with Chapter 19 (“Maryam”) from the Qur’an in naskh script written within and around the five large letters in thuluth script: kaf ha ya ayn and sad, which appear at the beginning of this chapter. These single letters are some of the mysterious letters of the Qur’an which precede 29 of the 114 chapters. They are believed to be imbued with magical protective properties and are often found engraved on amulets (Venetia Porter, Word into Art, 26).
3. Mouneer al-Shaarani’s By their fruits you shall know them, 1993
In this work Shaarani has chosen a verse from the Gospels, Matthew 7:20, which is the title of this work “By your fruits you shall know them.” (Venetia Porter, Word into Art, 35).