Calligram

A calligram is text arranged in such a way that it forms a thematically related image. It can be a poem, a phrase, a portion of scripture, or a single word; the visual arrangement can rely on certain use of the typeface, calligraphy or handwriting, for instance along non-parallel and curved text lines, or in shaped paragraphs. The image created by the words illustrates the text by expressing visually what it says, or something closely associated; it can also, on purpose, show something contradictory with the text or otherwise be misleading.

This article is about the type of artwork. For the collection of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, see Calligrammes. For "Calligrams", the NYRB book series on China, see New York Review Books.
Calligram in French by Guillaume Apollinaire describing and visually representing his lover. Parts of the face's image (such as the hat, eye, nose, mouth, neck) each use words associated specifically with that part.

Writers

Guillaume Apollinaire was a famous calligram writer and author of a book of poems called Calligrammes.

José Juan Tablada wrote a book of Spanish-language calligrams.

  • Calligram of a tiger in Arabic script
  • Calligram of a snake in Georgian script
  • Calligram about the Eiffel Tower by Guillaume Apollinaire
  • Biggest calligram in the world, part of the permanent exhibition of the Valencian Museum of Ethnology.
  • In 1834 a French court ordered the satiric newspaper Le Charivari to publish on its front page a judgement entered against it for having carried a drawing of King Louis-Philippe in the shape of a pear. The newspaper printed the document as instructed—but in the shape of a pear.

See also

References
  • Deme, Zoltan (1995). "Poem-miniatures". Chords of Scales: Selected Fictions, Essays, and Studies. Warwick Township, N.Y: Universe Pub. ISBN 9635500726. LCCN 2003278749.
  • Kajima, Shōzō (1972). Post-War Japanese Poetry. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0140421459. OCLC 622904. (with many Japanese calligrams)
  • Neef, Sonja A.J. (2000). Kalligramme: Zur Medialität Einer Schrift : Anhand Von Paul Van Ostaijens De Feesten Van Angst En Pijn (in German). Amsterdam: ASCA Press. ISBN 90-76123-04-7.


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