Islamic art
Calligraphic design is omnipresent in Islamic art, where, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, religious exhortations, including Qur'anic verses, may be included in secular objects, especially coins, tiles and metalwork, and most painted miniatures include some script, as do many buildings. Use of Islamic calligraphy in architecture extended significantly outside of Islamic territories; one notable example is the use of Chinese calligraphy of Arabic verses from the Qur'an in the Great Mosque of Xi'an. Other inscriptions include verses of poetry, and inscriptions recording ownership or donation. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic "kufic" and "naskh" scripts, which can be found adorning and enhancing the visual appeal of the walls and domes of buildings, the sides of minbars, and metalwork. Islamic calligraphy in the form of painting or sculptures are sometimes referred to as "quranic art".
Japanese calligraphy
At the same time, a style of calligraphy unique to Japan emerged. Writing had been popularized, and the "kana" syllabary was devised to deal with elements of pronunciation that could not be written with the borrowed Chinese characters. Japanese calligraphers still fitted the basic characters, called "kanji" , into the squares laid out centuries before. A fragment, "Kara-ai no hana no utagire" (, AD 749) is considered the first text to show a style unique to Japanese calligraphy; it shows a Tanka poem using Man'yōgana, thus deviated from contemporary Chinese calligraphy. Ono no Michikaze (AD 894-966), one of the so-called "sanseki" , "Three Brush Traces"), along with Fujiwara no Sukemasa and Fujiwara no Yukinari, is considered the founder of the authentically Japanese "wayō" style, or "wayō-shodō" . This development resonated with the court: Kūkai said to Emperor Saga, "China is a large country and Japan is relatively small, so I suggest writing in a different way." The , a poem written by Emperor Saga on the occasion of Saichō's death, was one of the examples of such a transformation. Ono no Michikaze served as an archetype for the "Shōren-in" school, which later became the "Oie" style of calligraphy. The "Oie" style was later used for official documents in the Edo period and was the prevailing style taught in the "terakoya" schools of that time.