Many are poets wherever you go, but very few have combined two great talents: poetry and calligraphy.
In this report, Al-Jazeera Net is approaching the worlds of 3 Arab poets, from Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt, who are proficient in the art of Arabic calligraphy, and each of them has its story, but it seems that poetry overwhelmed the talent of calligraphy and engraving in letters, as it is an endless space, while the line remains an art of fun and beauty And perhaps a moment's escape from the battle of poetry and the exhausted effort, reflection and flight in the distant skies of imagination.
Al Hammadi surprises
Yahya Al Hammadi is one of the most important book of the vertical poem in the current Yemeni and Arab poetic scene, and he is also an amazing portrait painter, it was not surprising for his friends and followers on Facebook to look at them from time to time with examples of his artwork as calligrapher and if he did not invest his talent in the line as it should, but it is Poetry gave a lot of his time and his busyness, and his collection so far has 6 collections of poetry: the year of tents, embers and foam, and tents, the second exit from paradise, carved in smoke, and Yemen, the queer.
Al-Hammadi's talent in calligraphy is old, dating back to the primary stage in the school, where he began writing educational methods, and then at the secondary stage the writings and drawings on the inner wall of the school, before moving to the Technical School in Sana'a, in which he learned the rules of Arabic calligraphy at the hands of the late Iraqi calligrapher Jaafar Abboud .
Think about beauty
“The beginning was therefore the calligraphy, which is as a leader to poetry, through poetic verses and Qur’anic anthologies that were written by me or by ancient calligraphers before me, as looking into the details of the letter and its flowings and elegant meanings makes you more aware and thoughtful to the meanings of words, so thinking about beauty is the broader gate and resource Freshest for creativity, "said Yemeni poet and calligrapher Yahya Al Hammadi in his interview with Al Jazeera Net.
Al-Hammadi is taken by poetry and its worlds, and is fascinated by calligraphy and its enjoyment, and it is recognized here that "poetry is a complex process that requires a lot of time and patience, whether in terms of education, accompaniment or writing, unlike the font that in case you are proficient in its rules and conditions, it becomes fun and breathing that you resort to without hard effort, and for this - As for me- the hair accounted for the greater share of time and effort, and the line accounted for the share due to beauty and pleasure.
Among the lines that Hammadi is fluent in are: patch, transcription, diwani, third, and kufi, but he tends in writing paintings to Diwani, which he describes as being closest to himself as a plastic artist and poet, and explains this by saying "perhaps because it is the most flexible lines, as it gives calligrapher A comfortable space for departing from the rules that the rest of the lines shackle it. With Diwani, you can go out of the points that the rule draws, and the height of the letter A is based on it, for example, so that it increases, decreases, enlarges or reduces it according to the artistic form that you want for the painting, just as it is with the line Free or modern. "
In the context of 6 years of the Yemeni war, al-Hammadi notes that he did not take advantage of his talent in the line yet except in the least limits for reasons, most notably the personal, social and cultural instability, and the scarcity of those adopting such arts, he says.
Despite the neglect and negligence of the art of Arabic calligraphy by the parties concerned at present, Al-Hammadi asserts that there are no “media” that can compete with the calligrapher’s fingers in forming letters and adapting them to a picture that gives the recipient a pleasant aesthetic dose with which he feels that the letter has a voice, image and spirit, and that is what does not These media can do whatever their capabilities and accuracy, but "there is no harm to the artist to match these media by adapting them to serve his art, in the sense that they are complementary to what he creates, not dispensed with."
In conclusion, Al-Hammadi Yemeni calligrapher hopes that there will be a governmental will that entails the establishment of academies to teach Arabic calligraphy and its rules and encourage innovation and creativity in it, as well as building museums and research centers in which artworks can be collected and archived and dated, so that artists and researchers can facilitate the study and research process.
A beautiful paradox
Moncef Al Tounsi, a Tunisian poet, musician and calligrapher, resides in the island of Djerba in the southeast of Tunisia. Perhaps the paradox is that he writes poetry in French, and translates poetry to and from Arabic and French, but he practices calligraphy in his Arabic language, as it is a language of literal engineering and a beauty window between international languages.
The talent of calligraphy began with the Tunisian Moncef since middle school in the seventies, and he tells it with his words: “I started to love and care about Arabic script and learn it from childhood, which was the first thing that I cared about with music before poetry, then my passion started in Arabic and French (Voltaire and Lamartine) and I loved poetry in both reading and attempts Writing, especially the French that distinguished her, and then she moved to the stage of translating poetry to and from Arabic and French, where she translated poems and poetry collections for some poets.
"Jibraniyat" handwritten
In his handwriting on the fabric, he was fairly brilliant in writing the phrases and sayings of the late Lebanese Diaspora poet Gibran Khalil Gibran, including: "Be patient, the confusion begins with knowledge", and "The strong grow in isolation, but the weak will die."
All types of calligraphy are beautiful, according to Moncef, but "the ones that draw me the most are the Nisaburi Kufi, Diwani, Jali Diwani, Moroccan."
Al-Tounsi says that, like most artists, he did not reach what he wishes in the field of calligraphy due to the lack of opportunities and since the calligraphy was marginalized and absent in his country, but it indicates that interest in calligraphy and those in charge of it began slowly in recent times in Tunisia.
In his response to a question about "using digital media" against the handwriting as an ancient Arab heritage, Al-Munsif minimizes the statement that he believes that the media threatens the art of traditional Arabic calligraphy, and explains that "there is no relationship to the art of Arabic calligraphy with what they accomplish by digital media, it remains and remains firm as it suggests With his career throughout history. "
And the Tunisian concludes his talk to Al Jazeera Net by saying that the Arabic letter is "the masterpiece of history and the complexity of technology (digital)" as one of the specialists in contemporary Arabic letter said, and that the calligraphy is a noble art that can only be accomplished by hand (spiritual engineering with a physical machine) that does not disappear or disappear, according to his expression .
Not far away, in the Egyptian governorate of Suez, the poet and calligrapher Ahmed Ayed (a teacher of the Arabic language who has so far issued 7 poetry collections) is currently writing the "detached poem" by Ibn Al-Nahwi in his handwriting, within the diaries of isolation and quarantine due to the Corona epidemic, which is a poem from 40 Beta about joy, in which there is recourse to God, a sermon, and good tidings for relief.
Hair first
Ayed - Ahmed's father - was Hassan Al-Khatt, and for this he was keen to write his children from the handbook of calligraphy taught in school, and this is what Ahmed did in high school, as his passion for calligraphy grew more, to join the university in the school of calligraphy, and after the university ended he merged into a community Egyptian calligrapher.
"But poetry was previously, the first poem I wrote was at half past eight," says poet and calligrapher Ahmad Ayed, noting that "poetry and calligraphy are both Ibn Al-Harf, both expressing what is within the soul, both representing the culture, accuracy, vision and ingenuity of its owner, I consider myself a poet in the place the first".
Ayed notes that many of his friends have poems for him with his plan that they asked for, "But I remember one time I posted on Elvis a house and one of the calligraphers liked the friends, so he wrote it in his hand, and these were one of the most beautiful surprises that happened to me."
Ayed explained that he studied the main lines at the School of Improving Fonts "That is why I have a good critical eye, but I found and mastered the Al-Raqaa and Al-Diwani line at the hands of my teacher, Hassanin Mukhtar, may God protect him, and I am now studying the transcription line."
As for investing his talent as a calligrapher or not, Ahmed Ayed has a special and different destination. He sees the streak as a way of enjoyment, vision and beauty, and adds, "I think beauty distorts when it becomes a means, not a goal."
Ayed says that more than 10 years ago, Egypt witnessed a strong linear awakening represented by a generation that mastered the origins and kept pace with the times.
In conclusion, Ayed hopes that the Arabic calligraphy will be used and made part of our identity, and that it will be used in all aspects of life.