Micrography
menorah
.Micrography (from
Jewish form of calligrams developed in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam,[1] 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.
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
, 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
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.
See also
References
- ^ Torah, Bible, Coran (French)
External links
- Micrography: Text Art and Typography
- Leila Avrin, Interlaces and Grotesques: the Art of Hebrew Micrography, Jewish Heritage Online Magazine
- A 13th Century Pentateuch British Library, BL Add. MS 21160
- A German Pentateuch, c. 1300 British Library, BL Add. MS 15282
- Jewish Theological Seminary exhibit on Micrography
- Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress, from the Jewish Virtual Library
- Dalia-Ruth Halperin, Micrography - a Jewish art, British Library Hebrew manuscripts project. Accessed 2016-05-25.