Calligraphy is handwriting

The author of one of the pen blogs that I follow posted a piece the other day on calligraphy and ordinary handwriting. In the course of explaining why she prefers the latter, she said:

Calligraphy is a peculiar thing. It doesn’t carry anything of the writer’s personality. Maybe it carries something of the person who created the style. I’m not sure what I could compare it to. It’s certainly artistic but it bears no originality. It has to be an exact copy of a style created long ago.

I disagree. Certainly when you begin to learn calligraphy you try to copy the forms your teacher shows you as closely as possible – just like learning ordinary handwriting at school. But once you begin to master those forms, you make them your own – just like ordinary handwriting. In fact, the basic roundhand script that most calligraphy tutors begin with is simply a formal version of the ordinary handwriting you learn at school.

So, a good piece of calligraphy conveys the writer’s personality just as much as a piece of ‘ordinary handwriting’. And master calligraphers are quite capable of bringing originality to their art.