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Ikaros in Calligraphic Arts

"Art is not about coming up with new ideas but about interpreting those ideas that have always surrounded us" (George Lucas).

Franz Ablitzer, born in 1973 in Belfort, France, is an artist author who practices calligraphy and illumination.

In homage to the late Dr. Rosa Amelia Giove Nakazawa, he offers us here an original creation based on the sacred song (ikaro), received by her and entitled "Madre Ayahuasca". To do this, he used a tinted iron gall ink appropriate for the Amazonian context but kept the cancellaresca corsiva, writing, which appeared in Italy during the Renaissance and which has become the ancestor of our « italic » today. The format of the original work is 35.5 x 51 cm, the nib used has a 1 mm wide nib (main text) and therefore a lowercase i measures 5 mm in height. This ink has a centuries-old resistance, medieval copyists used gall nuts and iron sulfate to make their ink, the depth of the black of which intensifies over time through oxidation.

He then offers Takiwasi a calligraphy of the ikaro "Tabaquero" made in October 2024 with walnut husk.

He summarizes the genesis of his work as follows:

“In 2018, wanting to focus on a project that would open up a time and space for intense concentration, I entered a residency at the Cistercian abbey Notre-Dame d'Oelenberg (Haut-Rhin). Nine months of sharing and privileged collaboration with his hardworking monks to prepare me for another retreat, also nine months long, in the Peruvian Amazon. This last stay, which I experienced as a real existential reset, allowed me to integrate the personal need to return to the fundamentals. Back in France, I was admitted to the Institut Supérieur de l’Enluminure et du Manuscrit (ISEEM) in Angers where I was able to renew my artistic practice. My acquired experience in printed publishing was a definite advantage for this apprenticeship, however I discovered some techniques that I had until then rarely or never practiced. Above all, I approached our medieval history with great interest and rediscovered in a very enthusiastic way the calligraphy that I practiced as an autodidact when I was a teenager.”

His remarkable work done with love and precision can be consulted on the following links:

https://franzablitzer.fr/
https://franzablitzer.fr/?portfolio_item=madre-ayahuasca