Celestial Contemplation
Of Mohammad Ehsaei

Ali Rashidi

Ostad Saeed Mohammad Ehsaei belongs to a category of people, who are natural calligraphers. Ostad Ehsaei helped to shape modern Iranian calligraphy, not only creating numerous works of art and teaching, but also by conducting all sorts of calligraphic experiments.

Ehsaei thinks of all of his experiments as a repetition of Islamic prayer — “There is no deity, other than God.” But the spiritual content of this work doesn’t stop him from being modern and innovative in calligraphy.

For him calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting in the highest degree, besides, calligraphy is the expression of a special goal, set by its author. With such understanding of the meaning behind calligraphic handwriting Ehsaei came into painting, but because of his attachment to calligraphy he always attempted to create artwork using a composition with letters.

Ehsaei likes to think that he is close to impressionists. His work with letters and various daring ideas with developing separate calligraphic arrangements lead him to create compositions which were met either with ecstatic enthusiasm or harsh criticism. New kind of abstract painting, heavy on graphics, or, calligraphy with high levels of abstraction emerged as a result of his creative explorations. He himself thinks that the name created for his style — calligraphic painting — doesn’t exactly capture everything he is trying to express. He is sure that his work is not just painting, created through calligraphy, but painting of calligraphic texts. All of his experiences, accumulated in the realm of letter-image relationship, allowed him to become the Teacher of this new direction and now he teaches a never before existent course of “Graphic writing” in the Institute of Fine Arts in Tehran. Ehsaei participated in many foreign exhibitions, winning first places and could without a doubt be added to the founding fathers of Iranian graphic design.