The Ancient Roman Cursive

Workshop Description

Chronologically the "New" Roman Cursive is inserted between the I century b.C. and the IV century a.D. This style develops at the same time as the official writings of the State, Capitalis Rustica, Uncial and Quadrata. Commonly it is considered the cursive form of the capital letter. While the Quadrata and Rustica are written carefully and meticulously, the Roman Cursive seems to be written quickly , without care and is often difficult to read. In reality its apparent rhythmic disorder (Chaos) has an extraordinary musicality of the line that is expressed through the connections between the letters. It is, in my opinion, pure writing. Its protagonist is not a geometric form, but the LINE. A line that dances, that moves in the space, until it creates a harmony of signs. The letters are not formed according to a rigid pre-ordered scheme, but are modified according to the single movement. This course aims to stop and consider the aspects of the origin of coursivity in calligraphy, how to write and connect letters and the line of writing that “dance” and move into the space with its expressive potentialities in greater detail. The tools we will use will be a small size Speedball pen and the pointed brush and thus increase our ability to use them at the same time. We intend also to work on the more experimental aspects. If you are looking for how to dissolve some stiffness and get more fluidity in your calligraphy and discovering a new historical ancient style, this is the course for you.