Page 68 - Studio International - September 1968
P. 68
Framed and shaped writing Peter Mayer studied physics and classical Chinese.
Visiting lecturer in general calligraphy at Chelsea
School of Graphics. Exhibited calligraphy and concrete
Peter Mayer
poetry at Arts Lab, Arlington Mill and Poesiqde
Avanguardia Novisima in Buenos Aires.
1. The God of Literature formed from `The entire history of scripts illustrates the struggle
Chinese cursive writing ( tsao shu), an between the ornamental and representational
ink rubbing from an inscription in Loyang principles,' wrote the Russian 'Formalist' Victor
Shklovsky. The main stages in this struggle between
ornament and the representation of sounds and things
are :
These ways of writing form a spectrum ranging from
`normal' writing through various stages to pictures.
Writing began as gestures and pictures which
became phonetic syllabaries and alphabets. But
pictures and the various blends of pictures, words,
and letters never quite disappeared, having died
out and revived in most cultures at all times in the
struggle characterized by Shklovsky and which is
perhaps due to a perennial pictographic nostalgia.1
Of the various blends of writing and ikons
(=picture, symbol, sign, &c.) framed and shaped words
are probably the most striking having received
more attention2, albeit often rather abstruse, than
other parts of the word-ikon continuum. But unless
we see shaped and framed words as an integral part of
this continuum they will seem merely ephemeral and
whimsical. Nothing could be further from the truth.
