Micrography (from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, literally small-writing – "Μικρογραφία"), also called microcalligraphy, is a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish form of calligrams developed in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam,Torah, Bible, Coran
(French) utilizing minute

Hebrew letters The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish ...

to form representational, geometric and abstract designs. Colored micrography is especially distinctive because these rare artworks are customarily rendered in black and white.

Description

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 ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant char ...

, where ASCII or extended ASCII characters are arranged to form an image on a computer screen and/or printout.

Motivation

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 ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical comman ...

, by using only text, not images per se. As similar restrictions exist in certain

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

societies, this solution has been adapted in

Islamic calligraphy Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, in the languages which use Arabic alphabet or the alphabets derived from it. It includes Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, and Urdu calligraphy.Chapman, Caroline (2012). ...

to the Arabic alphabet as well.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Micrography: Text Art and Typography
* Leila Avrin

Jewish Heritage Online Magazine

British Library, BL Add. MS 21160

British Library, BL Add. MS 15282
Jewish Theological Seminary exhibit on Micrography

* Dalia-Ruth Halperin
Micrography - a Jewish art
British Library Hebrew manuscripts project. Accessed 2016-05-25. Visual arts genres Jewish art Islamic calligraphy Hebrew calligraphy

Description

Motivation

See also

References

External links