INVENTION OF WRITING

● “Writing is the visual counterpart of speaking”

○ in the prehistoric ages, it was with marks, symbols, and pictures on surfaces and
substrates
● Speech – before the electronic age – was limited by how human memory can fail and
how almost immediately words vanish without a trace as there is no concrete evidence
of it ever being said
● “The invention of writing brought people the luster of civilization and made it possible to
preserve hard-won knowledge, experiences, and thoughts.”

● The origin of writing and visible language comes from simple pictures.
○ writing & drawing are natural ways of communicating ideas
○ found in Africa over 200,000 years old
■ (from 35,000 to 4,000 BCE or the Paleolithic/Stone Age - hunters to the
Neolithic era/New Stone Age - gatherers )
■ these pictures were for the sake of survival and utilitarian and ritualistic
purposes
■ there were also different marks which we would never know if they were
“protowriting - an early systems of symbols” or just fabricated objects
■ “petroglyphs - carved or scratched signs or simple figures on rock”
■ “pictographs - signs or symbols expressing some idea or information”
■ “pictorial art - recording objects and events of the world through signs and
symbols”
● formed the basis of writing as Paleolithic artists developed a
tendency toward simplification (and stylization) signs, symbols,
and figures had later been reduced to the point of almost
resembling letters

● Writing may have evolved from the need for record keeping of Mesopotamia’s temple.
● “One theory holds that the origin of visible language evolved from the need to identify the
contents of sacks and pottery containers used to store food.”
○ earliest written records are of proto-cuneiform tablets
■ “cuneiform - logosyllabic script in the ancient middle east”
● Writing evolved over centuries
○ “people began writing in horizontal rows from left to right and top to bottom”
■ making it easier to write though its context becomes less literal
■ “characters were now composed of a series of wedge-shaped strokes”
■ “signs became ideographs - a symbol that represents an idea or a
concept (independent of any language)”
■ “rebus writing - pictures and/or pictographs representing words and
syllables with the same or similar sound as the object depicted”
● Writing took on important ““magical”” qualities
● “The general public held those who could write in awe”
● “Writing enabled society to stabilize itself under the rule of law”
 ○ collection of laws spelled out crimes and their punishments, thus establishing
social order and justice
○ measurements and weights were standardized and guaranteed

● “The Egyptians evolved a complex writing based on pictographs - hieroglyphics.”

○ “some of the signs were alphabetic, some were syllabic, and some were
determinatives - signs that determined how the preceding glyphs should be
interpreted”
○ “our use of visual symbols originated with the Egyptians”
● “The Phoenicians replaced the complexity of cuneiform with simple phonetic signs.”

ASIAN CONTRIBUTION
● “Some of the many innovations developed by the ancient Chinese changed the course
of human events.”
○ the compass
○ gunpowder
○ Chinese calligraphy
○ silk
○ porcelain
○ block book

● “The Chinese writing system is a purely visual language.”

○ “Chinese characters are logograms - graphic signs that represent an entire
word.”
● “The earliest known Chinese writing is called chiaku-wen or bone-and-shell script.”
○ closely bound to the art of divination
● “The next phase of Chinese calligraphy is chin-wen, or bronze script.”
○ consisted of inscriptions on cast-bronze objects
● “The third phase of Chinese calligraphy is hsiao chuan, or “small-seal” style.”
○ a further simplification of this is the “li transformation”
● “Li-shu, also called as “clerical” style, had a major impact on Chinese calligraphy
○ can be divided into the Qing and Han styles
● “The final step in the evolution of Chinese calligraphy is chen-shu (also, kai-shu, or
“regular” style).”
○ xing-shu is a further refined style

● “Spiritual states and deep feelings can be expressed in calligraphy.”

○ thick and almost lazy strokes become mournful
○ poems written in celebration of the spring season have a light quality
● “Calligraphy was said to have:”
○ bones - authority and size
○ meat - proportion of the characters
○ blood - texture of the fluid ink
 ○ muscle - spirit and vital force

● Dynastic records attribute the invention of paper during 105 CE, to the eunuch and high
government official Cai Lun who was regarded as the god of the papermakers.
○ “Cai Lun’s process for making paper continued almost unchanged until
papermaking was mechanized in 19th century England.”
○ as time went on, its light weight, economical manufacture, and versatility
overcame all reservations the Chinese had with paper
● Printing was invented by the Chinese
● The first form is called relief painting - similar to stamping
○ its origins are either from:
■ the use of engraved seals to make identification imprints
● during the Han dynasty (3rd century CE) there were seals called
chops and it was the reverse of a stamp until 500 CE where the
carving was for the negative space instead of the calligraphy
■ or the manner of making inked rubbings from inscriptions which are
carved into stone
● (around the 2nd century CE) “these reliefs were closer to painting
than to sculpture, for the figures crowding the complex designs
were handled as flat silhouettes with linear detail and very little
spatial depth.”

● The earliest surviving datable printing which are Buddhist dharni or charms - were
produced in Japan

● During the early 9th century, the Chinese government began to issue paper certificates
of deposit to merchants who deposited metal currency with the state.
● Shortly before the year 1000, there was a shortage in the provinces of metal currency.
Thus, paper money was designed, printed, and used with metal coins.
○ it was printed on perfumed paper of high silk content or colored paper
● China is the first society in which ordinary people had daily contact with printed images.

● 10th century Chinese prime minister Feng Tao thrust block printing into the mainstream
Chinese civilization
○ The scrolls of the Confucian classics were replaced with paged formats in the 9th
or 10th century
○ Stitched books were developed in the 10th or 11th century

● Early forms of Chinese graphic design involved using illustrations and calligraphy as
headers and printing playing cards.

● “Around 1045 CE, the Chinese alchemist Pi Sheng extended the woodblock printing
process by developing the concept of movable type.”
 ○ though it was an innovative process, it was never used widely in Asia as it could
not replace the hand cut woodblock printing
● “A notable effort to print from bronze movable type began in Korea under government
sponsorship in 1403 CE.”
● China’s invention of paper and printing had spread to Europe, just as the Renaissance
period was happening.
○ Europe’s rediscovery of classical knowledge, flowering of the arts, and
contributions of early modern science were greatly aided by the then printing
process.

PRINTING COMES TO EUROPE