Vietnamese calligraphy
Vietnamese calligraphy relates to the calligraphic traditions of Vietnam. It includes calligraphic works using a variety of scripts, including historical chữ Hán with chữ Nôm, both of them are collectively known as, and the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet, which is known as Historically, calligraphers mostly used the, then due to the adoption of the Latin-based chữ Vietnamese alphabet, modern Vietnamese calligraphy also uses Latin script.
Traditional Vietnamese calligraphy is strongly affected by that of China. Chữ Hán was often used as a literary language in ancient Vietnam, and as a result, Vietnamese calligraphy also used to follow Chinese calligraphy’s standard and used chữ Hán in many of its writings. For example, during the Lý dynasty, its style was similar to China’s Tang dynasty. During the Trần dynasty, it was influenced strongly by China’s Song and Yuan dynasties.
Nonetheless, over time, Vietnam developed its own styles of calligraphy historically for writing both Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm. In the later Lê dynasty, Vietnam developed a unique style of calligraphy called by Phạm Đình Hổ in his book Vũ Trung Tùy Bút. It was first used in bureaucracy only but later became popular for all writing purposes. It was also called Lệnh thư in Việt Sử Toát Yếu because of its initial bureaucratic characteristic.
calligraphy gained popularity during the New Poetry and Free Poetry Movements, due to the increasing popularity of using the Vietnamese vernacular, as well as influence from French literature. Modern Vietnamese calligraphy is influenced by modern Latin cursive but is written using the calligraphy brush, rather than quill or reed pens as is done in Western calligraphy. Vietnamese calligraphy can be used to write poems, festive banners, signage, and so on.