Assignment 1

Emily Bristow

History of Graphic Arts

Assignment 1

1/20/15

I chose to write about the section on the invention of writing because I found it the most interesting in relation to graphic arts, as well as just the beginning of history. In the section I learned about Mesopotamia culture and Egyptian culture. The thing that both had in common was having the first evident ability of recording information or events. Both cultures developed their language beginning with graphics. They would use pictures or pictographs to tell stories, and the images used often depicted the physical objects. I never thought that the actual invention of writing would come from pictures itself. Stepping back however I realize it was easier to draw what they saw, because everyone generally saw the same thing so it was a universally understood way of communication and keeping records. As the ability to express words and stories through pictographs grew though, the cultures grew along with them. The ability to record events allowed information to be passed down through the years, cultures could now grow and learn from the past because of this graphic creation in writing that was generally universal. With the creation of this skill came the development of measurement, scribes, and even recorded laws and stories. Culture could now develop among civilization with this ability to record things and thus last longer then memory. The two most fascinating things about the Egyptians hieroglyphs though was that they were more kinetic to the language and as scribes recorded things, the pictures developed into representative, simpler characters that began to resemble the letters we know today in all cultures. After reading this section I have come to the personal conclusion that graphics or graphic arts lie at the core of the development of our current cultures.