Virtue and Happiness: The Manual of Epictetus (Shambhala calligraphy series) - Tapa blanda

Claude Mediavilla brings to the Greek text his training as both a painter and calligrapher, marrying modern variants of both medium and style with classical forms in a way that brings Epictetus' words to life with beauty and startling immediacy. Calligraphy (from the Greek for "beautiful writing") is an art where word and image meet, where the artist strives to give visual expression to the meaning of words in a way that transcends the text while remaining completely faithful to it. It is a discipline that has been invested with spiritual significance wherever it has arisen—and it has arisen throughout the world in every age, in virtually every language, culture, and religion. The Shambhala Calligraphy series is a collection of books devoted to contemporary expressions of this "art of the word," featuring contemporary calligraphers' striking new interpretations of texts that have been traditional subjects for calligraphic interpretation. Whether in Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or Chinese pictographs, the characters, words, and sentences are brought to life anew here in a choreography of mind, hand, and heart by which letter and spirit fuse in a single stroke.

Epictetus (c. 55?c. 135 CE) was a freed slave who became an influential philosopher in the Greco-Roman world. His key teaching was that happiness is everywhere and always available to those who learn to love things as they are. His famous Manual, excerpts of which are produced here, emphasizes the virtues of equanimity, freedom from passion, and virtuous action.