Do you know fingernail calligraphy?

or Khatt-i nakhuni …?

Publication of the online article: Nail and Griffin on Paper: Exploring a fingernail calligraphy album from twentieth-century Iran in collaboration with Shiva Mihan

This minimalistic artform flourishes during the 19th century in Iran and only involves the nail pressure of the thumb and ring finger from both sides of the paper, to create a calligraphy or a design. This results in a three-dimensional embossed effect on paper. Khatt-i Nakhuni is not a photogenic artform since it involved the interaction between the viewer and the piece as well as the effect of incident light to reveal the embossed motif.  Shiva Mihan and myself have recently published a short paper on the khatt-i Nakhuni album Arabe 6870 from the #bnf. The study focuses on the paper used by the artist, its origin (from Finland) and emphasizes the global paper trade which took place in the 19th century.

The article can be found here