A closer look
Armenian ornamental letters can take the forms of birds, animals or knots. UNESCO inscribed Armenian letter art and its cultural expressions on its Representative List in 2019.
Here, a letter asks to be both read and seen. Your eye may first recognise an ornament, then discover a familiar character within it. That small moment of recognition turns reading into a visual game.
Try drawing the first letter of your name twice: once plainly, then with decoration. Which strokes must remain for the letter to stay recognisable? The exercise reveals an intriguing artistic problem: how to bring legibility and imagination together. Looking at an illuminated letter afterwards, you may notice both at once.
Source: UNESCO, “Armenian letter art and its cultural expressions,” 2019.
Illustration generated with AI: an artistic interpretation, not a documentary photograph.