Micrography
Art genre using minute Hebrew letters
Micrography (from Greek, literally small-writing, "Μικρογραφία"), also called microcalligraphy, is a Jewish form of calligrams developed in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam, utilizing minute Hebrew letters to form representational, geometric and abstract designs. Colored micrography is especially distinctive because these rare artworks are customarily rendered in black and white.
01Description
The artwork is created from text that forms an image when viewed at a distance, creating an interplay between the text and image. The photomosaic, whose tiny individual images form a mosaic when viewed from a distance, is a modern analogue. Another modern analogue is ASCII art, where ASCII or extended ASCII characters are arranged to form an image on a computer screen and/or printout.
02Motivation
There is a relationship between this form of art, employing both digital and analogic symbols, and the restrictions on images found in the second commandment. Micrography provides a unique solution to the visual artist who wishes to remain devout in observation of Jewish law, by using only text, not images per se. As similar restrictions exist in certain Muslim societies, this solution has been adapted in Islamic calligraphy to the Arabic alphabet as well.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Micrography”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- A shiviti, Denmark.jpg by image in Det Kongelige Bibliotek, author unknown, Public domain
- Caligrafia arabe pajaro.jpg by Degeefe, Public domain
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