Glory to God
Calligraphy in modern free Kufic style, "Glory to God", 1997
China ink on white paperboard
Lent by the artist
(Photo: Harry Foster  © Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation)



" Calligraphy is like every other art: you cannot master it nor subjugate it nor train it the way you would train a horse or tame a wild animal. In fact, it is the poem that writes you, not you who writes the poem. And beautiful music is the music that seduces you and soothes you. In the same way, beautiful calligraphy is the calligraphy that woos your pen and enters, through its sinuosity, during your moments of inspiration and creation. [...]

Dr. Dahesh, my teacher, used to say, 'Calligraphy is a visual music.' "


Excerpts from a text by the artist, La Calligraphie et moi




Yasser Badreddine was born in 1942 in Al-Nabatyia, a city in South Lebanon. Introduced to traditional poetry by his father, he developed at a very young age a lively interest, not only in this art, but also in calligraphy. He was only 14 years old when the merchants in his neighbourhood came to him to order their signs. He learned the trade by studying other signs in the city and through contact with sellers of artist's colours and brushes. In 1960, he enrolled in college and began to create and produce political banners. He first began writing poems when he was in his early twenties. Much later, after his arrival in Montreal in 1990, his verses would be greatly inspired by the Canadian landscape.

Yasser Badreddine
Yasser Badreddine, St-Hubert, Quebec, 2000
Rawi Hage
Gelatine silver prints
Collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization


After studying law, Yasser Badreddine published poems and obtained his first stable employment as a calligrapher. From this time onwards, he perfected his knowledge of the Riq'a, Naskhi, Farisi, Thuluth and Diwani styles, and rubbed shoulders with masters of calligraphy-among others, Mr. Sammame, Cheikh Nasr and Mr. Al-Baba. The latter, with whom he became friends, even entrusted him with retouching one of his important works.

The year 1972 marked a turning point in Yasser Badreddine's artistic journey, when he met Dr. Dahesh, writer and aesthete, who asked him to calligraph one of his poetry collections. This encouragement incited the artist to calligraph his own poems as well as verses from the Koran. His work then became one with drawing: What characterizes Arab calligraphy is that it is possible to invent many forms from a single word or from a single phrase . . . It's like a poem-an artist can create many things with the letters. In his work, he uses manuscript illumination, and prefers parchment and leather as supports.

God does not alter the state of a people, insofar as the individuals who compose it do not alter what is in themselves.
Calligraphy in Diwani style, "God does not alter the state of a people, insofar as the individuals who compose it do not alter what is in themselves.", 1997
China ink on white paperboard
Lent by the artist
(Photo: Harry Foster  © Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation)

Yasser Badreddine has written and calligraphed volumes of poetry. He received first prize in the graphic design category at the International Arab Book Fair in Beirut, for Sara (1997) and Daftar Al-Ghourba (1999; translation: On Exile Within the Self). The Canadian Museum of Civilization has acquired some of his calligraphies.

faten.b@sympatico.ca