Different strokes: Why we like calligraphy

It's intuitive that the value we place on calligraphy should rise in proportion to its replacement by printing, and that in a paradoxical way, the art of calligraphy is a consequence of printing

Calligraphy is an enigma. Its enduring, popular appeal may let us take it for granted, obscuring the question of why, in the age of mechanical text, we revel so conspicuously in it.

The first, easy answers heard most often — antiquity and beauty — are, by themselves, inadequate. Little of the antique survives in our consciousness. And simply quoting beauty is circular (leading to the inanity that we like it because it’s beautiful and beautiful because we like it), unless qualified — 

so read on.

The Deep Design of our abiding love for calligraphy is that it is born in manufacture, and is