Calligraphies en caractères arabes aux frontières du monde islamique du monde islamique
L’équipe CallFront est heureuse d’avoir pu participer au dernier cahier de la Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (Remmm) sur la thématique des études sur les mondes musulmans et les humanités numériques.
Continuer la lecture de « [Publication] – Décrire la calligraphie en caractères arabes : enjeux et méthodologies pour la constitution d’une base de données pour le projet CallFront »In November 2023, CallFront welcomed Umberto Bongianino, Assistant Professor at the Khalili Research Center in Oxford, in Paris, for a session on praxis focused on the study of the instruments used to write Maghribī mabsūṭ, and the techniques employed in Maghribī thuluth chrysography, as well as issues related to letter forms in epigraphic Maghribī thuluth and potential methods of transposing models. A few months later, in June 2024, Umberto Bongianino, Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Nuria Garcia Masip and I traveled to Morocco to meet M. Belaïd Hamidi, a Moroccan calligrapher and expert in Maghribī script. Antoine Brendlen, the filmmaker associated with the CallFront project, accompanied and filmed the team throughout this visit, thereby fully documenting this scientific investigation as well as the calligraphic demonstrations performed by the artist.
This meeting took place in Fez, the calligrapher’s hometown and former capital of the Marinid dynasty (1244-1465), and it aimed to continue the documentation of the history of calligraphy in Arabic script in the Maghrib and to further explore the themes raised during the session on praxis and the international workshop. Belaïd Hamidi shared his expertise on Maghribī scripts as well as his professional considerations as a calligrapher regarding some ancient manuscripts and calligraphic inscriptions adorning the city’s monuments.
Le matériel épigraphique constitue une part non négligeable des calligraphies en caractères arabes. Beaucoup reste à explorer dans certaines régions où ces formes écrites ont souvent pris des significations spécifiques pouvant aller bien au-delà de leur message textuel. Cette rencontre est organisée en deux temps : une table-ronde réunira d’abord un chercheur, une calligraphe et un tailleur de pierre, dans un échange portant sur les modus operandi. Une journée d’études rassemblera ensuite archéologues, historiens de l’art et épigraphistes travaillant sur les inscriptions sur les rives de la mer Noire, la Péninsule Ibérique, et le monde indo-persan.
Continuer la lecture de « [Workshop CallFront] : 22-23 janvier 2025 – Calligraphie et inscriptions aux frontières du monde islamique »Between the 13th and the 17th of May 2024, CallFront hosted a week-long international workshop in Paris, focusing on calligraphic practices in the Iberian Peninsula, the Maghrib, and West Africa. This event brought together a panel of specialists in the field, who engaged with the scientific community of Paris and presented their work to a broader audience.
The workshop featured three major events, fostering the dialogue among scholars from diverse disciplines, such as History of Art, History, Paleography, and Anthropology. This interdisciplinary exchange enriched the CallFront corpus of scripts, and encouraged the advancement of research in these areas. Additionally, one of the goals of this workshop was to document some of the West African calligraphic traditions before they disappear, as they have in other regions.
The first event was held on May 14th at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where the CallFront team was welcomed by Khalid Chakor Alami, in charge of the Persian and Arabic manuscript collections. This work session was led by Susana Molins Lliteras (University of Cape Town) and Mauro Nobili (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), who examined several West African manuscripts. The following manuscripts were given a particular attention: BnF Arabe 402[1], BnF Arabe 509[2], and BnF Arabe 6869[3].
On November 7th, 2023 we had the pleasure of welcoming Umberto Bongianino, Departmental Lecturer in Islamic Art and Architecture at the Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford, for a session on praxis. These sessions are meant to be exploratory collaborations between researchers and calligraphers, in order to experiment and try out new hypotheses, following an established protocol developed by the CallFront Project. In this case, this was a preliminary session ahead of our work with the Moroccan master calligrapher Hamidi Bel’aid, who will be collaborating with us in the upcoming future.
We structured this session around a series of questions posed by Umberto Bongianino concerning the instruments used to write the Maghribī mabsūṭ (“monumental”) style, as well as the techniques used for Maghribī thuluth chrysography. The final part of the session broached questions regarding letter forms in epigraphic Maghribī thuluth, as well as the possible methods used for the transposition of models.
For the experiments on Maghribī mabsūṭ, we used three specimens printed to scale: two Qurʾāns possibly from Marrakesh, dating from ca. 1220[1] and ca. 1230 (the “Pink Qurʾān”),[2] and a Qurʾān probably from Fes, dated 705 H./1306.[3] Our main objective was to recreate the calamus which would have been used for these calligraphic styles, a monumental variant of Maghribī round scripts used especially, but not exclusively, in Quranic manuscripts. In order to do this, we first selected thick 160 gr drawing paper, with no sizing but polished, resembling the weight and texture of the Pink Qurʾān. For the ink, although the corrosive effects on the pages of the original specimens indicate the employment of metallo-gallic inks (ḥibr), we used a black soot ink (midād), easier to procure and which behaved similarly to ḥibr in terms of consistency.
Continuer la lecture de « Experimenting with Maghribī scripts: tools and techniques »
La péninsule Ibérique, l’Afrique du Nord et l’Afrique de l’Ouest constituent un vaste territoire où, depuis la période médiévale jusqu’à nos jours, la calligraphie en caractères arabes s’est développée en des styles variés, éloignés des canons de la calligraphie arabe classique. Durant une semaine, en collaboration avec Sorbonne Université, l’INHA accueillera une équipe internationale rassemblant chercheurs et maîtres calligraphes qui analyseront ensemble les développements de ces écritures. Deux événements publics, une rencontre avec les calligraphes, ainsi qu’une journée d’étude ponctueront cette semaine d’échange autour de l’art d’écrire.
Continuer la lecture de « [Workshop CallFront] : 15 & 17 mai 2024 – L’art de la calligraphie arabe de la péninsule Ibérique à l’Afrique de l’Ouest »During the month of June 2023, I had the opportunity to conduct field work in Greece and Türkiye thanks to a grant from the École française d’Athènes. Starting in Athens, I travelled to Istanbul via Northern Greece and Turkish Thrace. On the way, the aim was to stop at sites where dedicatory inscriptions dating from the early Ottoman period were possibly still visible and accessible, such as in Thessaloniki, Komotini and Edirne.
Early Ottoman inscriptions in the Balkans have been known for a long time as documentary sources. Indeed, dedicatory inscriptions affixed to monuments contain valuable information about individuals, including the founder (e.g. name, gender and title reflecting a position in the Ottoman social hierarchy), the function of the building, and a date. The inscriptions were therefore deciphered, edited and studied since the early 20th century. The Thésaurus d’Épigraphie Islamique (or TEI, supported by the Max van Berchem Foundation and the University of Liège) is a remarkable tool for a first approach to this material.
Continuer la lecture de « Canonical calligraphy on the Ottoman frontier: Preliminary considerations on thuluth inscriptions from the Balkans »
L’équipe CALLFRONT interviendra dans le cadre du séminaire Histoire et archéologie de l’Islam médiéval (Equipe Islam médiéval, UMR 8167), le mercredi 31 janvier 2024 de 17h à 19h à l’Institut de recherche sur Byzance, l’Islam et la Méditerranée au Moyen Âge (IRBIMMA) escalier B, dernier étage, 17, rue de la Sorbonne 75005 Paris.
