Not
all fonts will be considered as beautiful by all people any more than
all people agree on what is good art or good music. It is a personal
choice.
What
you seek comes from the arena of graphology.
A
note of caution here: graphology is only effective in spontaneous
forms of writing expression. In that respect, it is as accurate, and
in accurate, as a lie detector.
The
basis of graphology is that as soon as you're given a space to
interact with - in this case a piece of paper - you ascribe meaning
to its different dimensions. The top and bottom are considered as
representations for space. The top of the page is considered "Up"
with connotations of "above" and "hierarchy".
Conversely, the bottom of the page is considered as the opposites
"down" and "below". The left and right sides of
the page represent the movement of time so in a society like ours
which writes from left to write, they represent the past and future
respectively. Of course, in a society where they write right to left,
this would be reversed. So, given that temporal-spatial framework,
when you're asked to place a mark on it, you choose the place that
most appropriately fits your personality. And each mark expresses the
same attitude. So for a forward thinking person, all of their writing
will be slanted to the right as if it were rushing into the future.
For a backward thinking person, all the writing will be slanted to
the left as if holding onto something to stop them sliding into the
future. If people think of themselves as small, their handwriting
will be small. If they have a big ego, their handwriting will be
correspondingly larger.
Of
course, it is not a perfect science. Apart from society, there are
two other massive modifiers to it:
How
we're taught to write and our feelings attached to that. In our
island, we were taught to write with special paper that had three
lines in close proximity and we were taught that the body of the
letter remains within the middle section and certain letters are
allowed into the upper or lower regions. But if you were poor at
writing a particular type of letter (for example the upward sweep)
and were punished for not doing it correctly, you then associate
upper sweeping letters with punishment and that is going to affect
your handwriting forever. So where graphologists might claim that an
absence of marks in the upper region indicate a poor mental ability,
it may be more that the person doesn't want to be reminded of the
pain of learning to write
Our
own personal iconography. I used to get into trouble at school for
putting skulls into every art work project. My teachers said that it
was morbid. But not to me because, as far as I'm concerned the skull
is a very positive idea - it protects my brain and the skeleton
lasts the longest of the rest of the tissue so it represents
strength, protection and longevity, what's not positive about that?
So it is that when different people look at a blank space, they
don't necessarily see the same temporal-spatial grid that
graphologists claim we all see. Or if they do, how do they react
when they get terrible news like a diagnosis of cancer? In that
case, does the writing no longer slant to the right because their
future is limited?
So
what is beautful in calligraphy?
Well,
it will be whatever triggers those writing cues that express our
society. In the West, that will mean an emphasis on the right/future
and upper/mental.
Here's
an example:
Personally,
I think they're all dull and over flouncy.
For
me, calligraphy inhabits that interesting space between pure
abstraction (dull, standard letters) and representation (a true image
of the thing) by giving the words and letters characteristics of the
thing. So you could write "cat" in soft, furry letters and
they will communicate one meaning of the word. However, if you to
write it sharp, jagged letters, that would communicate something
else. So calligraphy takes you back to a time before the Gutenberg
press where letters were drawn and so were as much expressions of the
artist as in pictures they drew.
The
basis of calligraphy is pattern recognition.
Once
upon a time, writing and drawing where the same because everything
was done by hand. You can see this in the ancient texts of the
Mayans, Egyptians and Assyrians where letters and images were
intermingled in order to communicate ideas.
It
was at this point, that the sense of letters was developed.
When
you're free to draw a word - which is what you do with handwriting -
that process of drawing modifies the word. Two "A"s need
not be drawn the same. As an expression of your state of mind, it
will change from moment to moment. A happy "A" is different
from an angry "A" A most amusing irony is when people say
to me "Oh you can't find out anything about me from my
handwriting using graphology because it changes with my moods"
And I reply,
"So
you agree that your handwriting is not fixed and is influenced by
your state of mind so graphology does work, then"
But
that's the problem for other people trying to understand your
writing, isn't it? How are they to understand what I have written if
it is so changeable. And how is someone going to do that for
everyone's handwriting if all of them are changing all of the time
There
must be core set of signals which specify what a letter looks like
and everything else is embellishment.
Well,
yes there is. It is the way that we were taught to write at school.
Do you remember the groups of three-lines where some numbers stayed
in the middle while others went up to the top line and some went down
to the bottom line while a very small number took up all three areas?
Then later, you were taught the cursive style where you slanted the
words to the right and joined them up.
Until
the Gutenberg press, calligraphy didn't exist because all writing was
embellished by the artist. Then printing changed all of that. Gone
was colour, drawings and any variation to be replaced by dull black
standard text on lifeless white paper.
Then,
somewhere along the line, this became the superior form of writing.
Art
and writing became separated. And even how the words were presented
on the page ceased to matter until a little later where some of the
ancient scribes skills came back as graphic design.
So
now we've come full circle.
Graffiti
artists have re-discovered all of the skills and the joys that were
lost with printing and now freely mix type, layout, design and images
to make a whole.
The
problem of assigning scientific explanations to art is that they just
don't work because they are pre-selective about what they call art.
In other words, they start with a biased sample. For example,
Ramachandran once explained that Picasso is so well liked because he
triggers visual cues for front facing pictures and profiles so he
just triggers more visual cues. But if that were the case, then
everyone would like Picasso - which they don't. But let's take it one
stage further. If Ramachandran is correct and it's all a matter of
triggering visual cues, then no one would like paintings because we
would all like sculptures instead as, by definition, a three
dimensional object triggers more visual cues than a two dimensional
painting could.
So,
if Ramachandran is correct, then no one should like Picasso because
he's only a painter.
Oops
If
you want to see more of their arguments, you can find them here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroesthetics
But
you won't get the answer you're seeking.
*+*+*
First
off, "most people" is hardly precise and even if it were
true, so what? "Most people" are misinformed about most
things. However, I have found that the critics usually work from the
premise of "Well this is so obviously wrong that anyone
believing in it is stupid" which is hardly an adequate basis for
productive discussion
Second,
I made no claims about it. In fact, I highlighted major issues with
using this concept in a glib and casual manner.
Third,
good luck on finding definitive empiral evidence on this or anything
else for that matter. Like the rest of science, there are as many
studies that show that graphology works as there are that show that
it doesn't work. And all of the ones I've seen from both sides of the
debate have been susceptible to "The Observer Effect" and
"Confirmation Bias" as with most of the rest of science. I
may be cynical but I've got to the point where I can tell you the
results of research before it's published by simply asking who funded
it.
Here's
a more scholarly article on it if you're interested in a more
reasoned discussion on the points:
Personally,
I have been intrigued by the consistency between certain aspects of
handwriting and personality but I'm far from convinced myself. I
think you need to look for clusters - where several aspects of the
handwriting give the same or similar result. And you really have to
take context into consideration - if I'm writing on a hard or uneven
surface with an unfamilar pen then my handwriting is going to be very
different from using my own pen on my writing desk.
There
are two ways that could provide a clearer view on its accuracy:
The
first would be a triple blind experiment. The subjects would be
required to fill in an innocuous questionnaire that the experimenter
would claim was studying something other than handwriting. The
experimenter would then hand the questionnaire to a graphologist who
would analyse it without meeting the person. Then the personallity
analysis would be handed over to friends of the test subject to ask
them how accurate it is without telling them how it was produced. Of
course, there are still all sorts of issues with determining the
validity of the results but at least it would get rid of some of The
Observer Effect and Confirmation Bias
Get
a piece of handwriting from historical figure. Then get an actor or
actress who doesn't know the source of the handwriting to simply
copy it while trying out certain personas and characteristics to see
which worked with that handwriting and see how how close they get to
acting like the original writer. Of course, you'd have to do it with
a number of actors and actresses to see if a pattern emerged.
