A museum of calligraphy was set up in Moscow

The first museum of calligraphy in Russia, the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy, was set up in Moscow. Its initiators managed to collect the best specimens of calligraphic art under the same roof. Yet the museum exposition adds up to 100 exhibits, but by December it promises to increase in the number of exhibited items.

The artworks of the masters of neat and beautiful handwriting had been primarily appreciated before the invention of the printing press… However, nowadays the teachers striving for calligraphic penmanship of their students are absolutely right.

“Every morning after awakening for 15-20 minutes practice calligraphy instead of breakfast. And you will see the results! I saw people changing for the better”, told the journalists artist and teacher Petr Chobitko.

“For 10 years I have been learning to write with my eyes closed”, told a prominent master of Chinese calligraphy Chang Wang-Fu before writing the old Chinese words of wisdom: “And small sprouts will grow big”. “It is like a kind of martial art! A character must take its place and be beautiful, of course! Otherwise, instead of the ancient wisdom the hieroglyphs will imply something awkward and funny…And the master will be ashamed!”.

Watching at these creations one understands: calligraphy is not an accurately filled-in blank. It is a play of words and imagination. They can be a foamy wave…And spring flowers…And if the letters are placed in accordance with the laws of geometry an artist would use a humiliating term “scriptomania”.

The masters of calligraphy have always denied the standard book and paper fonts. After all, any flowery signature of an artist issued hundreds and thousands of times remains in people’s memory as “something written black on white”.

Address: 1 Sokolnichesky Val, pavilion 7. Open hours: August 1, 2008 – September 3, 2008 – 11 am – 5 pm (Monday-Friday). Free entrance. December 1, 2008 – (Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy).

Source: Moscow City Hall media centre Мosinform.ru