Traces the history of Western calligraphy, demonstrates various scripts, and shows manuscripts and inscriptions from the past

ART OF WRITTEN FORMS is the first book since the early years of the twentieth century to treat in one comprehensive volume both the historical and practical aspects of letters and writing systems. Drawing together information and illustrations from historic texts and modern research, much of it rare and inaccessible, the book surveys the history, theory, materials, and techniques of calligraphy, typography, and constructed letters.

The Art of Brush Lettering offers a meditative approach to learning all the facets of lettering with brush pens.

The court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II produced nothing more amazing than the Mira colligrophioe monumenta, a flamboyant demonstration of two arts-calligraphy and miniature painting. The project began when Rudolf's predecessor commissioned the master calligrapher Georg Bocskay to create a model book of calligraphy. A preeminent scribe, Bocskay assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historic scripts. Many were intended not for practical use but for virtuosic display. Years later, at Rudolf's behest, court artist Joris Hoefnagel filled the spaces on each manuscript page with images of fruit, flowers, insects, and other natural minutiae. The combination of word and images is rare and, on its tiny scale, constitutes one of the marvels of the Central European Renaissance. The manuscript is now in the collections of the Getty Museum. Forty-eight of its pages are reproduced in this book, containing samples of classic italic hands; historical, invented, and exhibition hands; Rotunda, a classicizing humanist script based on Carolingian miniscule; classically based scripts; and Gothic blackletter and chancery.

Mi Fu was a prominent calligrapher in 11th-century China. This analysis of his work considers content and style, and examines his calligraphy within the framework of the artist's life, the Northern Song culture in which he lived and the literati theory of art he helped to formulate.