Vietnamese calligraphy

Vietnamese calligraphy (Vietnamese chữ Quốc ngữ: , Hán Nôm: ) relates to the calligraphic traditions of Vietnam. It includes calligraphic works using a variety of scripts, including historical chữ Hán (Chinese characters), Chữ nôm, and the Latin-based chữ Quốc ngữ. Historically, calligraphers used the former two scripts. However, due to the adoption of the Latin-based chữ Quốc ngữ, modern Vietnamese calligraphy mainly uses Latin script since 1920s.
Traditional Vietnamese calligraphy is strongly affected by that of China. Classical Chinese was often used as the written medium of communication, and as a result, Vietnamese calligraphy also used to follow Chinese calligraphy’s standard and used chữ Hán in many of its writings. For example, during the Lý dynasty, its style was similar to China’s Tang dynasty (618-907). During the Trần dynasty, it was influenced strongly by China’s Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties.
Nonetheless, over time, Vietnam developed its own styles of calligraphy historically for writing both Classical Chinese and Chữ nôm. In the later Lê dynasty, Vietnam developed a unique style of calligraphy called "Nam tự" (, ,) by Phạm Đình Hổ () in his book (Written on Rainy Days - ). It was first used in bureaucracy only but later became popular for all writing purposes. It was also called "Lệnh Thư" ( ,) in (Vietnamese History and Compendium - ) because of its initial bureaucratic characteristic.
In modern times, calligraphy has been done frequently in the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet chữ Quốc ngữ script, as Chữ Nôm and Chinese characters have largely fallen out of use. Chữ quốc ngữ calligraphy gained popularity during the New Poetry and Free Poetry Movements, due to the increasing popularity of using the Vietnamese vernacular, as well as influence from French literature. Modern Vietnamese calligraphy is influenced by modern Latin cursive but is written using the calligraphy brush, rather than quill or reed pens as is done in Western calligraphy. Vietnamese calligraphy can be used to write poems, festive banners, signage, and so on.