![Jingangjing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Jingangjing.jpg)
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
text,
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
s or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in antiquity as a method of
printing on textiles and later
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
. Each page or image is created by carving a wooden block to leave only some areas and lines at the original level; it is these that are inked and show in the print, in a
relief printing
Relief printing is a family of printing methods where a printing block, plate or matrix, which has had ink applied to its non-recessed surface, is brought into contact with paper. The non-recessed surface will leave ink on the paper, whereas t ...
process. Carving the blocks is skilled and laborious work, but a large number of impressions can then be printed.
As a
method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220 AD. Woodblock printing existed in
Tang China
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...
by the 7th century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century. ''
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
'' is the best-known type of
Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
, except for the
block book
Block books or blockbooks, also called xylographica, are short books of up to 50 leaves, block printed in Europe in the second half of the 15th century as woodcuts with blocks carved to include both text (usually) and illustrations. The content ...
s produced mainly in the 15th century.
History
China
According to the Book of the Southern Qi, in the 480s, a man named Gong Xuanyi (龔玄宜) styled himself Gong the Sage and "said that a supernatural being had given him a 'jade seal jade block writing,' which did not require a brush: one blew on the paper and characters formed." He then used his powers to mystify a local governor. Eventually he was dealt with by the governor's successor, who presumably executed Gong. Timothy Hugh Barrett postulates that Gong's magical jade block was actually a printing device, and Gong was one of the first, if not the first printer. The semi-mythical record of him therefore describes his usage of the printing process to deliberately bewilder onlookers and create an image of mysticism around himself. However woodblock print flower patterns applied to silk in three colours have been found dated from the
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
(before AD 220).
The rise of printing was greatly influenced by
Mahayana Buddhism
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...
. According to Mahayana beliefs, religious texts hold intrinsic value for carrying the Buddha's word and act as talismanic objects containing sacred power capable of warding off evil spirits. By copying and preserving these texts, Buddhists could accrue personal merit. As a consequence the idea of printing and its advantages in replicating texts quickly became apparent to Buddhists, who by the 7th century, were using woodblocks to create apotropaic documents. These Buddhist texts were printed specifically as ritual items and were not widely circulated or meant for public consumption. Instead they were buried in consecrated ground. The earliest extant example of this type of printed matter is a fragment of a dhāraṇī (Buddhist spell) miniature scroll written in Sanskrit unearthed in a tomb in
Xi'an
Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...
. It is called the ''Great spell of unsullied pure light'' (''Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing'' 無垢淨光大陀羅尼經) and was printed using woodblock during the Tang dynasty, c. 650–670 AD. A similar piece, the ''Saddharma pundarika'' sutra, was also discovered and dated to 690 to 699.
This coincides with the reign of
Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian (17 February 624 – 16 December 705), personal name Wu Zhao, was the ''de facto'' ruler of the Tang dynasty from 665 to 705, ruling first through others and then (from 690) in her own right. From 665 to 690, she was first empres ...
, under which the
Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra
The ''Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra'' (or ''Infinite Life Sutra'', Chinese: ''Fóshuōwúliàngshòujīng'' 佛說無量壽經; Vietnamese: Phật Thuyết Kinh Vô Lượng Thọ; Japanese: Taisho Tripitaka # 360) is one of the two Indian ...
, which advocates the practice of printing apotropaic and merit making texts and images, was translated by Chinese monks. The oldest extant evidence of woodblock prints created for the purpose of reading are portions of the
Lotus Sutra
The ''Lotus Sūtra'' ( zh, 妙法蓮華經; sa, सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्रम्, translit=Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram, lit=Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma, italic=) is one of the most influ ...
discovered at
Turpan
Turpan (also known as Turfan or Tulufan, , ug, تۇرپان) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 632,000 (2015).
Geonyms
The original name of the cit ...
in 1906. They have been dated to the reign of Wu Zetian using character form recognition. The oldest text containing a specific date of printing was discovered in the
Mogao Caves
The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu p ...
of
Dunhuang
Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...
in 1907 by
Aurel Stein
Sir Marc Aurel Stein,
( hu, Stein Márk Aurél; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at ...
. This copy of the
Diamond Sutra is 14 feet long and contains a
colophon at the inner end, which reads: "Reverently
aused to bemade for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong
.e. 11 May, AD 868 . It is considered the world's oldest securely dated woodblock scroll. The Diamond sutra was closely followed by the earliest extant printed almanac, the ''Qianfu sinian lishu'' (乾符四年曆書), dated to 877.
Spread
![Bronze printing plate for an advertisement](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Bronze_printing_plate_for_an_advertisement.jpg)
Evidence of woodblock printing appeared in Korea and Japan soon afterward.
The Great Dharani Sutra
The Great Dharani Sutra () is a copy of the Uṣṇīṣa Vijaya Dhāraṇī Sūtra, a scripture of Mahayana Buddhism, which is considered to be one of the oldest printed texts in the world.
Discovery
The Great Dharani Sutra was discovered ...
( ko, 무구정광대다라니경/無垢淨光大陀羅尼經, translit=Muggujeonggwang Daedharanigyeong ) was discovered at
Bulguksa
Bulguksa is located on the slopes of Mount Toham (Jinheon-dong, Gyeongju city, North Gyeongsang province, South Korea). It is a head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism and encompasses six National treasures of South Korea, including th ...
, South Korea in 1966 and dated between 704 and 751 in the era of
Later Silla
Unified Silla, or Late Silla (, ), is the name often applied to the Korean kingdom of Silla, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, after 668 CE. In the 7th century, a Silla–Tang alliance conquered Baekje and the southern part of Goguryeo in the ...
. The document is printed on a
mulberry
''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...
paper scroll. A dhāraṇī sutra was printed in Japan around AD 770. One million copies of the sutra, along with other prayers, were ordered to be produced by
Empress Shōtoku
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
. As each copy was then stored in a tiny wooden pagoda, the copies are together known as the ''
Hyakumantō Darani
The , or the "One Million Pagodas and Dharani Prayers", are a series of Buddhist prayers or spells that were printed on paper and then rolled up and housed in wooden cases that resemble miniature pagodas in both appearance and meaning. Although wo ...
'' (百万塔陀羅尼, "1,000,000 towers/pagodas Darani").
Woodblock printing spread across
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...
by 1000 AD and could be found in the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
. However printing onto cloth only became common in Europe by 1300. "In the 13th century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe", soon after paper became available in Europe.
Song dynasty
From 932 to 955 the
Twelve Classics and an assortment of other texts were printed. During the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
, the Directorate of education and other agencies used these block prints to disseminate their standardized versions of the ''Classics''. Other disseminated works include the ''Histories'', philosophical works, encyclopedias, collections, and books on medicine and the art of war.
In 971 work began on the complete
Tripiṭaka
''Tipiṭaka'' () or ''Tripiṭaka'' () or ''තිපිටක'' (), meaning "Triple Basket", is the traditional term for ancient collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures.
The Pāli Canon maintained by the Theravāda tradition in ...
Buddhist Canon (''Kaibao zangshu'' 開寶藏書) in
Chengdu
Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...
. It took 10 years to finish the 130,000 blocks needed to print the text. The finished product, the
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
edition of the ''Kaibao canon'', also known as the ''Kaibao Tripitaka'', was printed in 983.
Prior to the introduction of printing, the size of private collections in China had already seen an increase since the invention of paper. Fan Ping (215–84) had in his collection 7,000 rolls (''juan''), or a few hundred titles. Two centuries later, Zhang Mian owned 10,000 ''juan'',
Shen Yue
Shen Yue (; 441–1 May 513), courtesy name Xiuwen (休文), was a Chinese historian, music theorist, poet, and politician born in Huzhou, Zhejiang. He served emperors under the Liu Song Dynasty, the Southern Qi Dynasty (see Yongming poetry), a ...
(441–513) 20,000 ''juan'', and
Xiao Tong
Xiao Tong (, September/October 501 – 30 May 531), courtesy name Deshi (), formally Crown Prince Zhaoming (昭明太子, literally "Accomplished and Understanding Crown Prince"), was a Crown Prince of the Chinese Liang Dynasty, posthumousl ...
and his cousin Xiao Mai both had collections of 30,000 ''juan''.
Emperor Yuan of Liang
Emperor Yuan of Liang () (16 September 508 – 27 January 555), personal name Xiao Yi (), courtesy name Shicheng (), childhood name Qifu (), was an emperor of the Chinese Liang Dynasty. After his father Emperor Wu and brother Emperor Jianwen w ...
(508–555) was said to have had a collection of 80,000 ''juan''. The combined total of all known private book collectors prior to the Song dynasty number around 200, with the Tang alone accounting for 60 of them.
Following the maturation of woodblock printing, official, commercial, and private publishing businesses emerged while the size and number of collections grew exponentially. The Song dynasty alone accounts for some 700 known private collections, more than triple the number of all the preceding centuries combined. Private libraries of 10–20,000 ''juan'' became commonplace while six individuals owned collections of over 30,000 ''juan''. The earliest extant private Song library catalogue lists 1,937 titles in 24,501 ''juan''. Zhou Mi's collection numbered 42,000 ''juan'', Chen Zhensun's collection lists 3,096 titles in 51,180 ''juan'', and
Ye Mengde
Ye Mengde (; 1077–1148) was a Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the thro ...
(1077–1148) as well as one other individual owned libraries of 6,000 titles in 100,000 ''juan''. The majority of which were secular in nature. Texts contained material such as medicinal instruction or came in the form of a ''
leishu
The ''leishu'' () is a genre of Reference work, reference books historically compiled in China and other East Asian countries. The term is generally translated as "encyclopedia", although the ''leishu'' are quite different from the modern notion ...
'' (類書), a type of encyclopedic reference book used to help
examination candidates.
Imperial establishments such as the Three Institutes: Zhaowen Institute, History Institute, and Jixian Institute also followed suit. At the start of the dynasty the Three Institutes' holdings numbered 13,000 ''juan'', by the year 1023 39,142 ''juan'', by 1068 47,588 ''juan'', and by 1127 73,877 ''juan''. The Three Institutes were one of several imperial libraries, with eight other major palace libraries, not including imperial academies. According to Weng Tongwen, by the 11th century, central government offices were saving tenfold by substituting earlier manuscripts with printed versions. The impact of woodblock printing on Song society is illustrated in the following exchange between
Emperor Zhenzong
Emperor Zhenzong of Song (23 December 968 – 23 March 1022), personal name Zhao Heng, was the third emperor of the Song dynasty of China. He reigned from 997 to his death in 1022. His personal name was originally Zhao Dechang, but was change ...
and Xing Bing in the year 1005:
In 1076, the 39 year old
Su Shi
Su Shi (; 8 January 1037 – 24 August 1101), courtesy name Zizhan (), art name Dongpo (), was a Chinese calligrapher, essayist, gastronomer, pharmacologist, poet, politician, and travel writer during the Song dynasty. A major personality of ...
remarked upon the unforeseen effect an abundance of books had on examination candidates:
Woodblock printing also changed the shape and structure of books. Scrolls were gradually replaced by concertina binding (經摺裝) from the Tang period onward. The advantage was that it was now possible to flip to a reference without unfolding the entire document. The next development known as whirlwind binding (''xuanfeng zhuang'' 旋風裝) was to secure the first and last leaves to a single large sheet, so that the book could be opened like an accordion.
Around the year 1000, butterfly binding was developed. Woodblock prints allowed two mirror images to be easily replicated on a single sheet. Thus two pages were printed on a sheet, which was then folded inwards. The sheets were then pasted together at the fold to make a
codex
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
with alternate openings of printed and blank pairs of pages. In the 14th century the folding was reversed outwards to give continuous printed pages, each backed by a blank hidden page. Later the sewn bindings were preferred rather than pasted bindings. Only relatively small volumes (''
juan 卷'') were bound up, and several of these would be enclosed in a cover called a ''tao'', with wooden boards at front and back, and loops and pegs to close up the book when not in use. For example, one complete Tripitaka had over 6,400 ''juan'' in 595 ''tao''.
Ming dynasty
Despite the productive effect of woodblock printing, historian Endymion Wilkinson notes that it never supplanted handwritten manuscripts. Indeed, manuscripts remained dominant until the very end of Imperial China:
Not only did manuscripts remain competitive with imprints, they were even ''preferred'' by elite scholars and collectors. The age of printing gave the act of copying by hand a new dimension of cultural reverence. Those who considered themselves real scholars and true connoisseurs of the book did not consider imprints to be real books. Under the elitist attitudes of the time, "printed books were for those who did not truly care about books."
However, copyists and manuscript only continued to remain competitive with printed editions by dramatically reducing their price. According to the
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
author
Hu Yinglin
Hu Yinglin (; 1551–1602), also known as Hu Yuanrui, was a Chinese scholar, writer and bibliophile during the late Ming dynasty. A native of Lanxi, he produced over 1,000 works of scholarship. His two most noted works are the ''Shaoshishan fang ...
, "if no printed edition were available on the market, the hand-copied manuscript of a book would cost ten times as much as the printed work," also "once a printed edition appeared, the transcribed copy could no longer be sold and would be discarded." The result is that despite the mutual co-existence of hand-copied manuscripts and printed texts, the cost of the book had declined by about 90 percent by the end of the 16th century. As a result, literacy increased. In 1488, the
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
Choe Bu
Choe Bu (, 1454–1504) was a Korean official during the early Joseon Dynasty. He is most well known for the account of his shipwrecked travels in China from February to July 1488, during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). He was eventually banis ...
observed during his trip to China that "even village children, ferrymen, and sailors" could read, although this applied mainly to the south while northern China remained largely illiterate.
Three-five colored prints
In modern times, Chinese printing continued the tradition begun in medieval times. Black-and-white woodcuts were generally replaced by colored ones, achieved by printing successive runs with different inks. Between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, three—and five—color prints appeared. The oldest surviving print is the ''Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Paintings'' (1644) by
Hu Zhengyan, of which there are several copies in various museums and collections. It is still commonly reproduced in China today and its images are very popular: it includes landscapes, flowers, animals, reproductions of jades, bronzes, porcelain and other objects.
![Matteo Ripa001 - Morning Glow on the Western Ridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Matteo_Ripa001_-_Morning_Glow_on_the_Western_Ridge.jpg)
Another outstanding series is the collection of twenty-nine ''Kaempfer Prints'' (
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, London), brought in 1693 by a German physician from China to Europe, which includes flowers, fruits, birds, insects and ornamental motifs reminiscent of the style of
Kangxi
The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to 1 ...
ceramics. Equally famous is the compilation ''
Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden
''Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden'' (, ), sometimes known as (), is a printed manual of Chinese painting compiled during the early-Qing Dynasty. Many renowned later Chinese painters, like Qi Baishi, began their drawing lessons with the manual. ...
'', published in two parts between 1679 and 1701. It was initiated by the scholar and landscape painter Wáng Gài and expanded and prefaced by the art critic
Li Yu and the landscape painter Wáng Niè. It was noted for the quality of its polychrome and drawings, which influenced
Qing
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...
painting.
Goryeo
In 989
Seongjong of Goryeo sent the monk Yeoga to request from the Song a copy of the complete Buddhist canon. The request was granted in 991 when Seongjong's official Han Eongong visited the Song court. In 1011,
Hyeonjong of Goryeo
Hyeonjong of Goryeo (1 August 992 – 17 June 1031, r. 1009–1031) was the 8th ruler of the Goryeo dynasty of Korea. He was a grandson of King Taejo. He was appointed by the military leader Gang Jo, whom the previous King Mokjong had called ...
issued the carving of their own set of the Buddhist canon, which would come to be known as the ''
Goryeo Daejanggyeong''. The project was suspended in 1031 after Heyongjong's death, but work resumed again in 1046 after
Munjong's accession to the throne. The completed work, amounting to some 6,000 volumes, was finished in 1087. Unfortunately the original set of woodblocks was destroyed in a conflagration during the
Mongol invasion
The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire: the Mongol Empire (1206- 1368), which by 1300 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastati ...
of 1232. King
Gojong ordered another set to be created and work began in 1237, this time only taking 12 years to complete. In 1248 the complete ''
Goryeo Daejanggyeong'' numbered 81,258 printing blocks, 52,330,152 characters, 1496 titles, and 6568 volumes. Due to the stringent editing process that went into the ''Goryeo Daejanggyeong'' and its surprisingly enduring nature, having survived completely intact over 760 years, it is considered the most accurate of Buddhist canons written in
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
as well as a standard edition for East Asian Buddhist scholarship.
Japan
![Kawase Zôjôji](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Kawase_Z%C3%B4j%C3%B4ji.jpg)
In the
Kamakura period
The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...
from the 12th century to the 13th century, many books were printed and published by woodblock printing at Buddhist temples in
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
and
Kamakura
is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939.
Kamak ...
.
[The Past, Present and Future of Printing in Japan.](_blank)
Izumi Munemura. (2010). The Surface Finishing Society of Japan.
The mass production of woodblock prints in the
Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
was due to the high literacy rate of Japanese people. The literacy rate of the Japanese by 1800 was almost 100% for the
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
class and 50% to 60% for the ''
chōnin'' and ''nōmin'' (farmer) class due to the spread of private schools ''
terakoya
were private educational institutions that taught reading and writing to the children of Japanese commoners during the Edo period.
History
The first ''terakoya'' made their appearance at the beginning of the 17th century, as a development from ...
''. There were more than 600 rental bookstores in
Edo, and people lent woodblock-printed illustrated books of various genres. The content of these books varied widely, including travel guides, gardening books, cookbooks, ''
kibyōshi
is a genre of produced during the middle of the Edo period (1603–1867), from 1775 to the early 19th century. Physically identifiable by their yellow-backed covers, were typically printed in 10 page volumes, many spanning two to three volumes ...
'' (satirical novels), ''
sharebon
which can be roughly translated as "book of manners", was a pre-modern Japanese literary genre, produced during the middle of the Edo period from the 1720's all the way to the end of the 18th century. Plots almost invariably took place in the Yos ...
'' (books on urban culture), ''
kokkeibon
The was a genre and type of early modern Japanese novel. It came into being late in the Edo period during the 19th century. As a genre, it depicted the comical behavior occurring in commoners' daily lives.
The ''kokkeibon'' genre is the successo ...
'' (comical books), ''
ninjōbon'' (romance novel), ''
yomihon
is a type of Japanese book from the Edo period (1603–1867). Unlike other Japanese books of the periods, such as kusazōshi, they had few illustrations, and the emphasis was on the text. In storylines, Buddhist ethics such as karma are often pre ...
'', ''
kusazōshi
is a term that covers various genres of popular woodblock-printed illustrated literature during the Japanese Edo period (1600–1868) and early Meiji period. These works were published in the city of Edo (modern Tokyo).
In its widest sense, th ...
'', art books, play scripts for the kabuki and ''
jōruri'' (puppet) theatre, etc. The best-selling books of this period were ''Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko (Life of an Amorous Man)'' by
Ihara Saikaku
was a Japanese poet and creator of the " floating world" genre of Japanese prose (''ukiyo-zōshi'').
Born as Hirayama Tōgo (平山藤五), the son of a wealthy merchant in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku and later ...
, ''
Nansō Satomi Hakkenden
''Nansō Satomi Hakkenden'' ( ja, 南総里見八犬伝, label=shinjitai; ja, 南總里見八犬傳, label=kyūjitai) is a Japanese epic novel (''yomihon'') written and published over twenty-eight years (1814–42) in the Edo period, by Kyokute ...
'' by
Takizawa Bakin
(), a.k.a. (, 4 July 1767 – 1 December 1848), was a Japanese novelist of the Edo period. Born (), he wrote under the pen name (). Later in life he took the pen name (). Modern scholarship generally refers to him as , or just as n. He is ...
, and ''
Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige
, abbreviated as ''Hizakurige'' and known in translation as ''Shank's Mare'', is a comic picaresque novel ( kokkeibon) written by Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九, 1765–1831) about the misadventures of two travelers on the Tōkaidō, the main ...
'' by
Jippensha Ikku
was the pen name of Shigeta Sadakazu (重田 貞一), a Japanese writer active during the late Edo period of Japan. He was among the most prolific writers of the late Edo period — between 1795 and 1801 he wrote a minimum of twenty novels ...
, and these books were reprinted many times.
[Edo Picture Books and the Edo Period.](_blank)
National Diet Library.
From the 17th century to the 19th century, ''
ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
'' depicting secular subjects became very popular among the common people and were mass-produced. ''ukiyo-e'' is based on
kabuki
is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.
Kabuki is thought to ...
actors,
sumo
is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by thr ...
wrestlers, beautiful women, landscapes of sightseeing spots, historical tales, and so on, and
Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the ...
and
Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川 広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.
Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...
are the most famous artists. In the 18th century,
Suzuki Harunobu established the technique of multicolor woodblock printing called ''
nishiki-e
is a type of Japanese multi-coloured woodblock printing; the technique is used primarily in ukiyo-e. It was invented in the 1760s, and perfected and popularized by the printmaker Suzuki Harunobu, who produced many ''nishiki-e'' prints between 17 ...
'' and greatly developed Japanese woodblock printing culture such as ''ukiyo-e''. ''Ukiyo-e'' influenced European
Japonisme
''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japon ...
and
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
. In the early 20th century, ''
shin-hanga
was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized the traditional ''ukiyo-e'' art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods (17th–19th century). It maintained the traditional ''ukiyo-e'' co ...
'' that fused the tradition of ''ukiyo-e'' with the techniques of Western paintings became popular, and the works of
Hasui Kawase
was an artist, one of modern Japan's most important and prolific printmakers. He was a prominent designer of the '' shin-hanga'' ("new prints") movement, whose artists depicted traditional subjects with a style influenced by Western art. Like ma ...
and
Hiroshi Yoshida
was a 20th-century Japanese painter and woodblock printmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the shin-hanga style, and is noted especially for his excellent landscape prints. Yoshida travelled widely, and was particularly known ...
gained international popularity.
Asia and North Africa
A few specimen of wood block printing, possibly called ''
tarsh
In post- classical Arabic, a ''ṭarsh'' (طرش) is an engraved block used for printing. They were made of wood or tin and were in use from the ninth or tenth century until at least the fourteenth. There are over a hundred known Arabic blockprin ...
'' in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, have been excavated from a 10th-century context in
Arabic Egypt. They were mostly used for prayers and amulets. The technique may have spread from China or been an independent invention, but had very little impact and virtually disappeared at the end of the 14th century. In India the main importance of the technique has always been as a method of printing textiles, which has been a large industry since at least the 10th century.
Europe
![BibliaPauperum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/BibliaPauperum.jpg)
Block books, where both text and images are cut on a single block for a whole page, appeared in Europe in the mid 15th century. As they were almost always undated, and without statement of printer or place of printing, determining their dates of printing has been an extremely difficult task.
Allan H. Stevenson Allan Henry Stevenson (June 20, 1903 – March 31, 1970) was an American bibliographer specializing in the study of handmade paper and watermarks who "single-handedly created a new field: the bibliographical analysis of paper." Through his pion ...
, by comparing the watermarks in the paper used in block books with watermarks in dated documents, concluded that the "heyday" of block books was the 1460s, but that at least one dated from about 1451. Block books printed in the 1470s were often of cheaper quality, as a cheaper alternative to books printed by
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
.
[Master E.S., Alan Shestack, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1967.] Block books continued to be printed sporadically up through the end of the 15th century.
The method was also used extensively for printing
playing cards
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...
.
Impact of movable type
China
Ceramic and
wooden movable type were invented in the
Northern Song dynasty
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ...
around the year 1041 by the commoner
Bi Sheng
Bi Sheng (; 972–1051 AD) was a Chinese artisan, engineer, and inventor of the world's first movable type technology, with printing being one of the Four Great Inventions. Bi Sheng's system was made of Chinese porcelain and was invented betwee ...
. Metal movable type also appeared in the
Southern Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
. The earliest extant book printed using movable type is the ''
Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union
The ''Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union'' ( Tangut: ''Gyu̱²-rjur¹ Źji²-njɨ² Ngwu²-phjo̱² Mər²-twẹ²'', translated into Chinese as ''Jíxiáng Biànzhì Kǒuhé Běnxù'' 吉祥遍至口和本續) is the title of a set of nin ...
'', printed in
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...
c. 1139–1193. Metal movable type was used in the Song,
Jin, and
Yuan dynasties for printing banknotes. The invention of movable type did not have an immediate effect on woodblock printing and it never supplanted it in
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
.
Only during the Ming and Qing dynasties did wooden and metal movable types see any considerable use, but the preferred method remained woodblock. Usage of movable type in China never exceeded 10 percent of all printed materials while 90 percent of printed books used the older woodblock technology. In one case an entire set of wooden type numbering 250,000 pieces was used for firewood. Woodblocks remained the dominant printing method in China until the introduction of
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
in the late 19th century.
Traditionally it has been assumed that the prevalence of woodblock printing in East Asia as a result of Chinese characters led to the stagnation of printing culture and enterprise in that region. S. H. Steinberg describes woodblock printing in his ''Five Hundred Years of Printing'' as having "outlived their usefulness" and their printed material as "cheap tracts for the half-literate,
..which anyway had to be very brief because of the laborious process of cutting the letters." John Man's ''The Gutenberg Revolution'' makes a similar case: "wood-blocks were even more demanding than manuscript pages to make, and they wore out and broke, and then you had to carve another one – a whole page at a time."
Recent commentaries on printing in China using contemporary European observers with first hand knowledge complicate the traditional narrative. T. H. Barrett points out that only Europeans who had never seen Chinese woodblock printing in action tended to dismiss it, perhaps due to the almost instantaneous arrival of both xylography and movable type in Europe. The early Jesuit missionaries of late 16th century China, for instance, had a similar distaste for wood based printing for very different reasons. These Jesuits found that "the cheapness and omnipresence of printing in China made the prevailing wood-based technology extremely disturbing, even dangerous."
Matteo Ricci made note of "the exceedingly large numbers of books in circulation here and the ridiculously low prices at which they are sold." Two hundred years later the Englishman John Barrow, by way of the
Macartney mission
The Macartney Embassy (), also called the Macartney Mission, was the first British diplomatic mission to China, which took place in 1793. It is named for its leader, George Macartney, Great Britain's first envoy to China. The goals of the missi ...
to Qing China, also remarked with some amazement that the printing industry was "as free as in England, and the profession of printing open to everyone." The commercial success and profitability of woodblock printing was attested to by one British observer at the end of the nineteenth century, who noted that even before the arrival of western printing methods, the price of books and printed materials in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
had already reached an astoundingly low price compared to what could be found in his home country. Of this, he said:
Other modern scholars such as Endymion Wilkinson hold a more conservative and skeptical view. While Wilkinson does not deny "China's dominance in book production from the fourth to the fifteenth century," he also insists that arguments for the Chinese advantage "should not be extended either forwards or backwards in time."
Decline of woodblock printing in China
During the 16th and 17th centuries, printmaking enjoyed great popularity, especially in the illustration of books such as Buddhist texts, poems, novels, biographies, medical treatises, music, etc. The major center of production was initially in Kien-ngan (
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...
) and, from the 17th century, in Sin-ngan (
Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
) and
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
(
Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...
). On the other hand, in the 18th century, the industry began to decline, with stereotyped images. This coincided with the arrival of European missionaries who introduced Western engraving techniques. The Jesuit
Matteo Ripa
Matteo is the Italian form of the given name Matthew. Another form is Mattia. The Hebrew meaning of Matteo is "gift of god". Matteo can also be used as a patronymic surname, often in the forms of de Matteo, De Matteo or DeMatteo, meaning " escen ...
edited in 1714-1715 a series of poems by Emperor Kangxi, which he illustrated with landscapes of the imperial summer residence at
Jehol. During the reign of Emperor
Qianlong
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his Temple name, temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth List of emperors of the Qing dynasty, Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing empe ...
the one hundred and four maps of the Chinese Empire made by Jesuit missionaries were printed, as well as illustrations of his military victories, which he commissioned in Paris from the engraver
Charles-Nicolas Cochin
Charles-Nicolas Cochin (22 February 1715 – 29 April 1790) was a French engraver, designer, writer, and art critic. To distinguish him from his father of the same name, he is variously called Charles-Nicolas Cochin le Jeune (the Younger), Cha ...
(''Conquests of the Emperor of China'', 1767-1773). The emperor himself commissioned the Jesuits to instruct Chinese artisans in the intaglio technique, but they did not obtain good results. Already in the 19th century, the growing xenophobia against Europeans was progressively relegating the use of engraving in China.
In the 20th century, the genre was revived by the writer Lou Siun, who founded a woodcut school in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
in 1930. Influenced by contemporary Russian engraving, this school dealt especially with popular, agricultural and military subjects for propaganda purposes, as is evident in the work of P'an Jeng and Huang Yong-yu.
Korea
![JikjiType](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/JikjiType.gif)
In 1234, cast metal movable type was used in
Goryeo
Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unificati ...
(Korea) to print the 50-volume ''Prescribed Texts for Rites of the Past and Present'', compiled by
Choe Yun-ui
Choe Yun-ui was a Korean politician, publisher, and writer during the Goryeo Dynasty. Choe Yun-ui compiled the ''Sangjeong Gogeum Yemun'' (Hangul : 상정예문, hanja : 詳定禮文) with another 16 scholars. They collected all courtesies from ...
, but no copies survived to the present. The oldest extant book printed with movable metal type is the
Jikji
''Jikji'' () is the abbreviated title of a Korean Buddhist document whose title can be translated to "Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests' Zen Teachings".[Hangeul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The ...]
was done through woodblock prints. The general assumption is that movable type did not replace block printing in places that used Chinese characters due to the expense of producing more than 200,000 individual pieces of type. Even woodblock printing was not as cost productive as simply paying a copyist to write out a book by hand if there was no intention of producing more than a few copies. Although
Sejong the Great
Sejong of Joseon (15 May 1397 – 8 April 1450), personal name Yi Do (Korean: 이도; Hanja: 李祹), widely known as Sejong the Great (Korean: 세종대왕; Hanja: 世宗大王), was the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Initial ...
introduced Hangeul, an alphabetic system, in the 15th century, Hangeul only replaced
Hanja
Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom.
(, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...
in the 20th century. And unlike China, the movable type system was kept mainly within the confines of a highly stratified elite Korean society:
Japan
Western style
movable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
printing-press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
was brought to Japan by
Tenshō embassy
The Tenshō embassy (Japanese: 天正の使節, named after the Tenshō Era in which the embassy took place) was an embassy sent by the Japanese Christian Lord Ōtomo Sōrin to the Pope and the kings of Europe in 1582. The embassy was led by ...
in 1590, and was first printed in
Kazusa, Nagasaki
was a town located in Minamitakaki District, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.
As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 7,870 and a density of 322.81 persons per km². The total area was 24.38 km².
On March 31, 2006, Kazusa, along with th ...
in 1591. However, western printing-press were discontinued after the ban on Christianity in 1614.
The moveable type printing-press seized from Korea by
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
, otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...
's forces in 1593 was also in use at the same time as the printing press from Europe. An edition of the
Confucian
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...
''
Analects
The ''Analects'' (; ; Old Chinese: '' ŋ(r)aʔ''; meaning "Selected Sayings"), also known as the ''Analects of Confucius'', the ''Sayings of Confucius'', or the ''Lun Yu'', is an ancient Chinese book composed of a large collection of sayings a ...
'' was printed in 1598, using a Korean moveable type printing press, at the order of
Emperor Go-Yōzei.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...
established a printing school at
Enko-ji in Kyoto and started publishing books using domestic wooden movable type printing-press instead of metal from 1599. Ieyasu supervised the production of 100,000 types, which were used to print many political and historical books. In 1605, books using domestic copper movable type printing-press began to be published, but copper type did not become mainstream after Ieyasu died in 1616.
The great pioneers in applying movable type printing press to the creation of artistic books, and in preceding mass production for general consumption, were
Honami Kōetsu Honami may refer to:
*Honami (name)
*Honami, Fukuoka, a former town in Kaho District, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
*25074 Honami, a minor planet
*Sony Xperia Z1
The Sony Xperia Z1 is an Android (operating system), Android smartphone produced by ...
and Suminokura Soan. At their studio in Saga, Kyoto, the pair created a number of woodblock versions of the Japanese classics, both text and images, essentially converting
emaki (handscrolls) to printed books, and reproducing them for wider consumption. These books, now known as Kōetsu Books, Suminokura Books, or Saga Books, are considered the first and finest printed reproductions of many of these classic tales; the Saga Book of the Tales of Ise (''
Ise monogatari
is a Japanese ''uta monogatari'', or collection of ''waka'' poems and associated narratives, dating from the Heian period. The current version collects 125 sections, with each combining poems and prose, giving a total of 209 poems in most versions ...
''), printed in 1608, is especially renowned. Saga Books were printed on expensive paper, and used various embellishments, being printed specifically for a small circle of literary connoisseurs.
Despite the appeal of moveable type, however, craftsmen soon decided that the
running script
Semi-cursive script (), also known as running hand script, is a style of calligraphy which emerged in China during the Han dynasty (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD). The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly w ...
style of Japanese writings was better reproduced using woodblocks. By 1640 woodblocks were once again used for nearly all purposes. After the 1640s, movable type printing declined, and books were mass-produced by conventional woodblock printing during most of the
Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
. It was after the 1870s, during the
Meiji period
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
, when Japan opened the country to the West and began to modernize, that this technique was used again.
Middle East
In countries using Arabic scripts, works, especially the
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
were printed from blocks or by
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
in the 19th century, as the links between the characters require compromises when movable type is used which were considered inappropriate for sacred texts.
Europe
Around the mid-1400s, ''block-books'', woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with
movable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
. These were all short heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the
Ars moriendi and the
Biblia pauperum
The (Latin for "Paupers' Bible") was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning probably with Ansgar, and a common printed block-book in the later Middle Ages to visualize the typological correspondences between the Old and New Testaments. Unlike ...
were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the range of estimated dates being between about 1440–1460.
Technique
![Woodcut Press Skeen 1872](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Woodcut_Press_Skeen_1872.jpg)
''Jia xie'' is a method for dyeing textiles (usually silk) using wood blocks invented in the 5th–6th centuries in China. An upper and a lower block are made, with carved out compartments opening to the back, fitted with plugs. The cloth, usually folded a number of times, is inserted and clamped between the two blocks. By unplugging the different compartments and filling them with dyes of different colours, a multi-coloured pattern can be printed over quite a large area of folded cloth. The method is not strictly printing however, as the pattern is not caused by pressure against the block.
[Shelagh Vainker in Anne Farrer (ed), "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas", 1990, British Museum publications, ]
Colour woodblock printing
![Hiroshige A large waterfall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Hiroshige_A_large_waterfall.jpg)
The earliest woodblock printing known is in colour—
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the coc ...
from the
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
printed in three colours.
Colour is very common in Asian woodblock printing on paper; in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
the first known example is a Diamond sutra of 1341, printed in black and red at the Zifu Temple in modern-day Hubei province. The earliest dated book printed in more than 2 colours is ''Chengshi moyuan'' (), a book on ink-cakes printed in 1606 and the technique reached its height in books on art published in the first half of the 17th century. Notable examples are the
Hu Zhengyan's ''Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio'' of 1633, and the
''Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual'' published in 1679 and 1701.
See also
*
Ajrak
Ajrak ( sd, اجرڪ), also known as Ajrakh, is a unique form of blockprinting found mostly in Sindh, Pakistan and Ajrakhpur, Kutch district, India. These shawls display special designs and patterns made using block printing by stamps. Over the ...
*
Woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
*
Banhua
Banhua () is the Chinese umbrella term for any printed art objects, and especially for those made by woodblock printing, the term used for woodcuts from Asia.
History
The direct translation of 'Banhua' is 'printed picture', it is a general ...
*
Old master print
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of "fine art" produced in printmakin ...
*
New Year picture
A New Year picture () is a popular Banhua in China. It is a form of colored woodblock print, used for decoration and the performance of rituals during the Chinese New Year Holiday. In the 19th and 20th centuries some printers began to use the g ...
*
Kalamkari
''Kalamkari'' is a type of hand-painted cotton textile produced in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Only natural dyes are used in ''Kalamkari'', which involves twenty-three steps.
There are two distinctive styles of Kalamkari art in India ...
*
Ghalamkar
''Kalamkari'' is a type of hand-painted cotton textile produced in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Only natural dyes are used in ''Kalamkari'', which involves twenty-three steps.
There are two distinctive styles of Kalamkari art in India ...
*
Bagh Print
Bagh print is a traditional Indian handicraft originating in Bagh, Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The process is characterised by hand printed wood block relief prints with naturally sourced pigments and dyes. Bagh print motifs are typ ...
*
Textile printing
Textile printing is the process of applying color to fabric in definite patterns or designs. In properly printed fabrics the colour is bonded with the fibre, so as to resist washing and friction. Textile printing is related to dyeing but i ...
*
Bagru Print
*
Conservation and restoration of woodblock prints The conservation and restoration of woodblock prints, is the process of caring for and repairing images made from a specific printing process involving using wooden reliefs to stamp or imprint an image onto paper. The process of creating Woodblock p ...
References
Works cited
*
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*
*
*
*
*
External links
Centre for the History of the Book()
*
ttp://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/apr2005.html Fine exampleof a European block-book, ''
Apocalypse
Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...
'', with hand-colouring
Chinese book-binding methods, from the V&A MuseumChinese book-binding methods from the
International Dunhuang Project
The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is an international collaborative effort to conserve, catalogue and digitise manuscripts, printed texts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from the Mogao caves at the Western Chinese city of Dunhuang and v ...
Chinese woodblock printsfrom
SOAS University of London
SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...
"Multiple Impressions: Contemporary Chinese Woodblock Prints"at the
University of Michigan Museum of Art
The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...
American Printing History AssociationNumerous links to Online Resources and Other Organizations
* {{Gutenberg , bullet=none , no = 20195 , name = Wood-Block Printing, by F. Morley Fletcher, Illustrated by A. W. Seaby
Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on woodblock printing
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ttp://www.vam.ac.uk/content/videos/b/video-block-printed-wallpaper/ Video: Block-printed wallpaper a video demonstrating printing of multicolored wallpaper with a press, using blocks produced by William Morris
Chinese inventions
Book arts
Book design
Decorative arts
History of printing
Relief printing
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
Textile arts
Textual scholarship