Woodblock printing

Woodblock Printing (see also: xylography) is a technique for printing used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China sometime between the mid-6th and late 9th centuries.

The Technology

The three necessary components for woodblock printing are the printing block, which carries the design; ink, which had been widely used even in early China; and paper, itself also first developed in China, around the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. It has been noted by many that woodblock printing is a particularly appropriate technique for a writing system like Chinese, because of the strong incentive to avoid hand-copying every character in a given text. Although the Chinese also invented a form of moveable type with woodblocks around the 11th century, woodblock was usually done with a single block carved for each page of a given text. When there was a need for the reproduction of a text, the original block could simply be brought out again, while moveable type necessitated the composition of distinct “editions”. This difference between East Asian woodblock printing and the Western printing press had major implications for the development of book culture and book markets in East Asia and Europe.

The World’s First Printed Book

The world’s earliest dated printed book, a Chinese Diamond Sutra text of 868 A.D., was created with woodblocks and displays such a maturity of design and layout that it is probable woodblock printing had already matured a great deal by that time. Indeed, the development of woodblock printing around this time may have had more to do with the availability of paper and the missionary zeal of Buddhism (the spread of charms and sutras was strongly encouraged) than with any “invention” of woodblock printing, which already had ample precedents in Chinese rubbings and seals.

Spread and Decline of Woodblock Printing

The spread of woodblock printing beyond China is illustrative of this technology’s appeal. First, the technique spread through East and Central Asia, and by 1000 A.D. examples of woodblock printing appear in Islamic Egypt, and by the late Middle Ages woodblock printing has become an important force in Europe. While in Europe moveable metal type would soon replace woodblock printing for the reproduction of text, woodblock printing remained a major way to reproduce images in illustrated works of early modern European printing. In East Asia, woodblock printing proved to be more enduring, continuing well into the 19th century as the major form of printing, especially in China, even after the introduction of the Gutenberg printing press. Jesuits stationed in China in the 16th and 17th centuries indeed preferred to use woodblocks for their own publishing projects, noting how inexpensive and convenient it was. Only with the introduction of more mechanized printing methods from the West in the 19th century did printing in East Asia move towards metal moveable type and the printing press.

External sources

• Jonathan Bloom, Paper Before Print. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
• Tsuen-Hsuin, Tsien. Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 5, Part 1: Paper and Printing. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

External Links

• The Days of Woodblock Culture (includes Quicktime video of Japanese woodblock printing process).