Stamps - Crafts - Calligraphy

Stamp designed by Paule Persil, Best Calligraphy Worker in France. Calligraphy, from the Greek calli "beautiful" and graphein "to draw well". Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need for "the art of beautiful drawing", intimately linked to their divinities. The imprint, the innate testimony, even before writing, has accompanied mankind for some 6,000 years. From Lascaux to hieroglyphics, from cuneiform writing to alphabetic Phoenician writing, via the Roman capital with its perfect proportions and aesthetics, [which is this] unsurpassed alphabet from which alphabets and so many discoveries will derive, the evolution is considerable. In Egyptian times, the scribe was a notable scholar whose god was Thoth. The calligrapher was also [also] at the center of monasteries for centuries, called [also called] "the Prince". Knowledge and spirituality are inscribed by the calligrapher's hand. The gesture must be perfect and definitive on the parchment. Writing and calligraphy are inseparable, yet one needs meaning, through alphabetic reading and legibility, while calligraphy is not only utilitarian, [but] also formal and artistic. We have to learn to write before we can learn to calligraph. Dexterity is essential. Silence, slowness, solitude and asceticism are the calligrapher's companions. Calligraphy is a meditation that caresses Alchemy, the Sacred, through Thought, the Word. What is the PHI sign on each stamp? "Divine proportion, golden number", it's the symbol of Beauty, Perfection, Aestheticism, Unity. It also refers to Phidias, the Greek sculptor, goldsmith and painter of the 5th century BC, who established harmony between the real and the abstract. A founding element for subsequent centuries. So, what is the relationship between PHI and calligraphy? There's no such thing as random calligraphic forms. Every proportion of a letter is exact, precise, Unique like its vibration. This is where we find the golden ratio. Today, the total freedom of gesture and trace is offered to us like a musical improvisation. This is how the tools vary, the word passing from legible to illegible. The calligrapher's dexterity with any tool reveals his virtuosity. Body and Breath serve as the metronome for the calligrapher's creative inspiration. The "divine trace" of the "single stroke" is then laid down, discreetly revealing the calligrapher's intimacy, making the invisible visible, like a dance. "Calligraphy is a geometry of the soul that manifests itself physically" Plato

Timbre-poste (taille-douce) : Création Paule Persil, mise en page Bruno Ghiringhelli et gravure Pierre Bara