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As Didier Ottinger, the curator of Abstraction and Calligraphy – Towards a Universal Language explains: “Everywhere, images came before letters: in Egypt, China and Mesopotamia, as in the Americas, the first forms of writing were pictograms and ideograms, or stylised drawings. The advent of letters, of the alphabet, revolutionised writing. The shift from images to the written word inevitably involved loss, as if abandoning images gave rise to a nostalgia for meaning: letters no longer directly carried the meaning conveyed by images. The cost of this shift was a palpable draining of vigour, a dis-incarnation. From the Chinese (写: xiĕ), to the Greek (γγράφγράφειν ράφειν: graphein), via the Arabic ( :ُبُتْكَييَكْتُبُ yaktub), the respective verbs for “to write”, in their etymology, relate to pictures and painting. Western poets and writers taking the path of abstraction turned to non-European civilisations, in particular the Arab world and the Far East.

Stela bearing an Egyptian inscription, reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, c. 170–163 BCE Diorite 36.5 × 39.5 × 13.5 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Egyptian Antiquities Photo © musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski : p. 23.

Stela bearing an Egyptian inscription, reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, c. 170–163 BCE Diorite 36.5 × 39.5 × 13.5 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Egyptian Antiquities Photo © musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski : p. 23.

Joaquin Torres-Garcia 1874, Montevideo (Uruguay)– 1949, Montevideo (Uruguay) Composition universelle [Universal Composition], 1937 Oil on cardboard 108 × 85 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne- Centre de Création Industrielle On loan at LaM Lille Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, d’Art Contemporain et d’Art Brut (Villeneuve-d’Ascq) Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Philippe Migeat

Stela bearing an Egyptian inscription, reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, c. 170–163 BCE Diorite 36.5 × 39.5 × 13.5 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Egyptian Antiquities Photo © musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski : p. 23.

A. R. Penck (born Ralf Winkler) 1939, Dresden (Germany)- 2017, Zürich (Switzerland) Wird Zeichen Realität? 2 [Is Sign becoming a Reality? 2], 1982 Acrylic on canvas 180 × 330 cm Trebbin, Märkisch Wilmersdorf, courtesy Galerie Michael Werner © ADAGP, Paris, 2021
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