Chinese Wood Block Printing

Although the chinese invented paper and woodblock printing the knowledge about chinese woodblock prints in western countries has been very limited.

Chinese wood block printing.

Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text images or patterns used widely throughout east asia and originating in china in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper as a method of printing on cloth the earliest surviving examples from china date to before 220 ad. As a method of printing on cloth the earliest surviving examples from china date to before 220 and from egypt to the 4th century. The first mention of printing was in an imperial decree of 593 in which sui emperor wen ti ordered the printing of buddhist images and scriptures. The text was first written on a piece of thin paper then glued face down onto a wooden plate.

Although woodblock printing played an important role in the spread of information and commercial transactions in china it was a time consuming technology. Printing in east asia evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tables in china during the han dynasty 206 bc 220 ce. Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text images or patterns used widely throughout east asia and originating in china in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Woodblock printing existed in tang china during the 7th century ad and remained the.

While the chinese used only clay and wood movable type at. The characters were carved out to make a wood block printing plate which was used to print the text. Chinese woodblock printing is an ancient art that has been done for thousands of years. With the economic and cultural opening of china art friends can now learn about a new and fascinating world modern chinese woodblock prints based on traditional techniques that are pretty different from.

For example in 971 at the beginning of song dynasty the monk zhang tuxin began a project to print the tripitaka a collection of essential buddhist scriptures using wood blocks. The use of woodblock printing quickly spread to other east asian countries.