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Calligraphy in modern free Kufic style, "Glory to God", 1997
China ink on white paperboard
Lent by the artist
(Photo: Harry Foster © Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation)
" Calligraphy is like every other art: you cannot master
it nor subjugate it nor train it the way you would train a horse or tame
a wild animal. In fact, it is the poem that writes you, not you who writes
the poem. And beautiful music is the music that seduces you and soothes you.
In the same way, beautiful calligraphy is the calligraphy that woos your
pen and enters, through its sinuosity, during your moments of inspiration
and creation. [...]
Dr. Dahesh, my teacher, used to say, 'Calligraphy is a visual music.' "
Excerpts from a text by the artist, La Calligraphie et moi
Yasser Badreddine was born in 1942 in Al-Nabatyia, a city in South Lebanon.
Introduced to traditional poetry by his father, he developed at a very young age
a lively interest, not only in this art, but also in calligraphy. He was only 14
years old when the merchants in his neighbourhood came to him to order their signs.
He learned the trade by studying other signs in the city and through contact with
sellers of artist's colours and brushes. In 1960, he enrolled in college and began
to create and produce political banners. He first began writing poems when
he was in his early twenties. Much later, after his arrival in Montreal in 1990,
his verses would be greatly inspired by the Canadian landscape.
![Yasser Badreddine](/web/20061029113027im_/http://www.warmuseum.ca/cultur/cespays/images/pay2_04p3.gif)
Yasser Badreddine,
St-Hubert, Quebec, 2000
Rawi Hage
Gelatine silver prints
Collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization
After studying law, Yasser Badreddine published poems and obtained his first
stable employment as a calligrapher. From this time onwards, he perfected his
knowledge of the Riq'a, Naskhi, Farisi, Thuluth and Diwani styles, and rubbed
shoulders with masters of calligraphy—among others, Mr. Sammame, Cheikh
Nasr and Mr. Al-Baba. The latter, with whom he became friends, even entrusted
him with retouching one of his important works.
The year 1972 marked a turning point in Yasser Badreddine's artistic journey,
when he met Dr. Dahesh, writer and aesthete, who asked him to calligraph one of
his poetry collections. This encouragement incited the artist to calligraph his
own poems as well as verses from the Koran. His work then became one with drawing:
What characterizes Arab calligraphy is that it is possible to invent many forms
from a single word or from a single phrase . . . It's like a poem—an artist
can create many things with the letters. In his work, he uses manuscript
illumination, and prefers parchment and leather as supports.
Calligraphy in Diwani style, "God does not alter the state of a people, insofar as the individuals who compose it do not alter what is in themselves.", 1997
China ink on white paperboard
Lent by the artist
(Photo: Harry Foster © Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation)
Yasser Badreddine has written and calligraphed volumes of poetry. He received
first prize in the graphic design category at the International Arab Book Fair
in Beirut, for Sara (1997) and Daftar Al-Ghourba (1999;
translation: On Exile Within the Self). The Canadian Museum of Civilization
has acquired some of his calligraphies.
faten.b@sympatico.ca
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