After Class - Feb 5th 2009

Today we discussed the Chapter One reading. This included the basic forms of communication and their evolution. Starting the class off with a a group project. We were suppose to think of as many symbols for man and woman as we could, from the most simple to the most complex. We came up with a ton of different things, from the actual 'man and woman' sighs on bathrooms, to drawing little characters of a woman and a man. It was interesting that as the more complex the pictures got the more complex the meaning became. One example was that we used a beer can to represent 'man' and a martini glass to represent a 'woman.' The meaning became more complex and more abstract and it was harder to say 'oh that means woman,' it was more a sign of femininity. I think that's what helped the evolution of the common letter. As ideas became more complex and the wish to express them became important (the hierarchy of needs: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/maslow.htm ) the need for a more effective way to write was required. We looked at 'scribe' in particular, how a picture of a scribe's tools became a hieroglyphs and eventually the need to quickly write 'scribe' devolved it, almost, to a simple slash on a page. When we were able to see the various ancient ways to write letters it was easy to see how we have gotten to the modern letter forms. It was really over all very interesting.

Our final discussion was on illuminated texts. The earliest illuminated text were those used for funeral purposes in ancient Egypt. As I continued my resurch I found the most beautiful works of illuminated text were those from around the dark ages normaly in bibles. I have one pictured here, a beautiful works of art and text. Each text and art was hand writen and treated very carefully. I wonder if there are still modern forms of illuminated texts, dose anyone still practice the traditional form of illuminated text?