The Lord's Prayer in Arabic using a Japanese brush calligraphic style

A watercolor with gold foil on Arches paper (about 72cmx54cm) made on 14 March 1992 by Vladimir Tamari in Tokyo. A thin Japanese calligraphy brush was used for the script. Chinese and therefore Japanese brush script has a tradition going back thousands of years. The character is made up of several individual strokes. Under the influence of Zen Buddhism the usually strict rendering of traditional brush-strokes gave way to a more spontaneous expressive free-form line. Similarly Arabic script has adapted itself to scores of styles, yet it remains Arabic!