CONCLUSION

Calligraphy is an ancient art that has, in recent decades, slipped away from the mainstream gaze of the public. Over the centuries, calligraphy has moved between craft and art. Each new form of technology that is invented – the printing press, then the typewriter and the computer – has affected the demands for calligraphy and challenged its importance as a high form of art. In order to understand this type of work better, we must situate it in context with the historical development of calligraphy as a style of writing and as pivotal in the development of text.

“The first alphabet was developed by the Phoenicians around 1000 B.C… The alphabet was further developed by the Greeks, and then the Romans, around 850 B.C. As the roman empire spread over most of the Western world, Latin as the official language became the language of the churches of Europe…Because paper was expensive, the narrow, Gothic style was developed to enable scribes to fit more words on a single line” (Marianne, 2004) The process of producing text became easier and more affordable with the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century. Initially the press produced large block like lettering, but “the development of copperplates for printing in the seventeenth century, finer lines, better suited to the italic script could be printed. As a result, penmanship declined steeply” (Marianne, 2004). The turn of the 19th century saw the replacement of the flat-edged pen with the steel pen and the fountain pen. This new style made the stylized letters more difficult to write. This resulted in substantially fewer dedicated individuals who were highly skilled in the art. The decline “was turned around when William Morris (1834-96) reintroduced the flat edged pen and elevated writing to an art form. Calligraphy died as a craft and rose as an art. Morris pointed out that calligraphy expresses the "humanity of the maker and the truth of the materials”. (Marianne, 2004)

In ancient China, calligraphy, as a visual art was very highly revered. “The genres of painting and calligraphy emerged simultaneously, sharing identical tools—namely, brush and ink. Yet calligraphy was revered as a fine art long before painting” (Delbanco 2008). Fundamentally, calligraphy is an art form dedicated to the conveyance of thought through the human hand. In this way it is not unlike painting or other classical art forms. Chinese calligraphy in particular takes this element farther than the Roman texts. “In their written form Chinese Characters not only serve the purpose of conveying thought but also express in a peculiar visual way the beauty of the thought” (Chiang). This is one of the strongest elements that Brennan draws from Chinese calligraphy. The other is the accessibility of the thought. His extreme abstraction of characters mimics how a non-Chinese speaker might interact with Chinese calligraphy – as finding it aesthetically pleasing and extremely beautiful but unable to be understood. So, with the historical knowledge of these two different forms of text behind us, how do we go about analyzing Brennan’s work? Does the work require that we understand the semantics? Or is it enough to take in the raw, power of the geometric forms as they exist independently of any semantic content and to appreciate the craftsmanship of the letters?

One of the greatest struggles in analyzing contemporary art is that we have not yet become distant enough from it to understand what is significant and what styles will come to define our present era. Brennan’s work is particularly interesting to analyze because it is synthesizing so many different periods of art and techniques of production: Roman and Chinese calligraphy, Pop art from the 1960s, and street art of the present day. It is rare that an artist can span this many centuries in regards to their influences. Although Brennan’s calligraphy work does not resemble Pop art, many of his ceramic forms do. And, if we pull back some of the layers of his calligraphy work, that too, is in fact addressing similar issues to the Pop artists of the 1950s. Among these is Brennan’s challenge of the boundaries between different media. He has expertly combined printing techniques with wheel thrown ceramics thus catapulting his ceramic work decades ahead of most other contemporary ceramicists.

Drury Brennan’s work embraces modern technology and materials with open arms while staying true to the values of the historical movements he ascribes to. His tools range from traditional to contemporary – from calligraphy pens to paint markers. By using such a variety of tools he is creating a dialogue between different periods of art that addresses the variances between craft and commercialization – between galleries and the street.

Graffiti is an art of youth. It is uniquely associated with modern pop culture and hip-hop music and it contains influences to both pop art and the abstract expressionist movement of the 1950s and 60s. Such work is created using a variety of materials – spray paint, paint rollers, stencils, stickers, chalk and brushes. “This evolution in style and subject matter has earned graffiti the respect of the art world and guaranteed its long-lasting influence on art, graphic design, and style around the world” (Ganz 2004). This style of art has removed itself from the gallery thereby explicitly removing itself from the art market as well. Brennan plays on this concept in an interesting way by bring his work back to the gallery while maintaining the graphic qualities of street art.

In conclusion, the work Drury Brennan is doing is cutting edge contemporary. He is taking text to a place the art world has yet to see. He is fusing traditional schools of art together into a radical, not-so-traditional, immersive and visually powerful experience of letters. To see his work in person is to walk into a history book of calligraphy that stands in harmony with the vibrant, painted streets of Los Angeles and it serves to teach us about the possibilities of text and the importance of language in modern art.

WORKS CITED

Elliot, Marianne. "The Art of Calligraphy." The Arts. Cape Library, 2004. 44-46. Print.

Chiang, Yee. Chinese Calligraphy; an Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique. 3d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1973. Print.

Ganz, Nicholas, and Tristan Manco. Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents. New York: H.N. Abrams, 2004. Print.

Delbanco, Dawn. "Chinese Calligraphy". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chcl/hd_chcl.htm (April 2008)

OTHER CITATIONS AS THEY APPEAR ON THIS WEB PAGE

Brennan, Drury. "Questions for Drury Brennan." Interview by Kira Sandiford. 2014