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Art. LX.—“Giotto's Circle” and Writing.
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 15th January, 1901.]
By the statement that “the ability to form a perfect circle with pen or pencil is the ability to write well,” by which this note might be summarised, it may appear that a similar principle underlies proficiency in handwriting to that which lay in the art of Giotto, the correctness of whose belief in the efficacy of a perfect circle as his sole testimonial to his being an expert in his art was justified not only by his receiving the commission, but, more than that, in the fame which the incident has acquired. The connection between this famous circle and handwriting, or the phase of hand-writing dealt with herein, is put forth in the light that there is nothing new under the sun; for, though the point to be brought under notice is original as far as it goes, it must frequently have been acted on in principle, and probably to some extent in practice, the point being the offering for consideration a simple means by which to counteract the environment, if this term may be applied, which adversely besets many who desire to write well. If it be granted that a circle was the keynote of the art of Giotto, then I wish to suggest that a circle may also be the keynote of good handwriting.
The probability of an average writer improving by ordinary intelligent practice until his penmanship is above the average for legibility and grace is beyond question, and it is quite possible that, in some modification or other, what is herein set forth has been put into practice before.
On considering illegibility, it seemed to me chiefly caused by angularities; this, it may be stated, being the case where it occurs among the scores of handwritings which I have the opportunity of seeing in the course of ordinary daily routine. This being so, the way to meet and overcome this illegibility, or tendency towards it, is clearly to replace the angles with curves, and the most perfect curve for the purpose is a circle. Moreover, angularity in style appeared to be but the efforts of the muscles used in writing, restricted by the bones of the fingers and thumb, to take the line of least resistance, which is a straight, or nearly straight, line, to which must be added the lateral motion of the wrist; for this may be seen by the ease in making “1” well more easily than “O.” Another point, too, in writing
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is this: that among the most legible handwritings those which have not thick and thin strokes, but those which are even in flow, are in the majority; and observation and trial lead me to the conclusion that the bias of shaded writing is towards illegibility.
Briefly, the conclusion arrived at may be stated thus: Replace the environment which results in illegible angularities by one which produces curves—that is to say, let the fingers and thumb used in writing trace a circle so often that a curve will be the line of least resistance to them. This, to my mind, is done in the simplest way by rapidly tracing in one spot circles on top of one another, of the size of an ordinary written “o,” with pen or pencil. But this can be yet more effectively done by the aid of one of the simple mechanical means submitted. These provide a way of overcoming the inclination to shirk the exercise of will latent if not active in most of us, giving, moreover, an accurate circle for tracing. The aim, then, is to practise the circular motion with finger and thumb until that motion becomes pure habit.
On no account should the wrist be moved; it should be held firmly by the left hand.
The statement which, within the limitations of this paper, may be made an axiom is, the ability to form a perfect circle with finger-and-thumb motion is the ability to write well; or, in order to write well, occasionally practise forming circles until the muscles of the fingers and thumb tire.