Wood Blockprints

The Table below with dates shows how printing has deftly evolved over time 

Woodblock printing 200

Movable type 1040

Printing press c. 1440

Etching c. 1515

Mezzotint 1642

Aquatint 1772

Lithography 1796

Chromolithography 1837

Rotary press 1843

Hectograph 1860

Offset printing 1875

Hot metal typesetting 1884

Mimeograph 1885

Photostat and rectigraph 1907

Screen printing 1911

Spirit duplicator 1923

Dot-matrix printing 1925

Xerography 1938

Spark printing 1940

Phototypesetting 1949

Inkjet printing 1950

Dye-sublimation 1957

Laser printing 1969

Thermal printing c. 1972

3D printing 1986

Solid ink printing 1987

Digital printing 1991

Wood Block Origins in China

The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk, printed with flowers in three colours from the Han dynasty (before AD 220).  It is clear that woodblock printing developed in Asia several centuries before Europe. The Chinese were the first to use the process to print solid text, and equally that, much later, in Europe the printing of images on cloth developed into the printing of images on paper (woodcuts). It is also now established that the use in Europe of the same process to print substantial amounts of text together with images in block-books only came about four hundred years after the development of movable type by Bi Sheng (990–1051) during the Northern Song Dynasty of China.

Qing Dynasty

In China, an alternative to woodblock printing was a system of reprography since the Han Dynasty using carved stone steles to reproduce pages of text. The three necessary components for woodblock printing are the woodblock, which carries the design cut in relief; dye or ink, which had been widely used in the ancient world; and either cloth or paper, which was first developed in China, around the 3rd century BC or 2nd century BC. It seems that woodblock printing on papyrus has never been practised, although it would be possible.

To Arabia

A few specimens of woodblock printing, possibly called tarsh in Arabic have been excavated from a 10th-century context in Arabic Egypt. They were mostly used for prayers and amulets. The technique may be spread from China or an independent invention but had very little impact and virtually disappeared at the end of the 14th century.

In India

The main importance of Woodblock printing has always been as a method of printing textiles, which has been a large industry since at least the 10th century. Large quantities of printed Indian silk and cotton were exported to Europe throughout the Modern period.

The Beauty of Woodblock printing

Because Chinese has a character set running into the thousands, woodblock printing suits it better than movable type to the extent that characters only need to be created as they occur in the text. Although the Chinese had invented a form of movable type with baked clay in the 11th century, and the metal movable type was invented in Korea in the 13th-century woodblocks continued to be preferred owing to the formidable challenges of typesetting Chinese text with its 40,000 or more characters. Also, the objective of printing in the East may have been more focused on standardization of ritual text (such as the Buddhist canon Tripitaka, requiring 80,000 woodblocks), and the purity of validated woodblocks could be maintained for centuries. When there was a need for the reproduction of a text, the original block could simply be brought out again, while moveable type necessitated error-prone composition of distinct "editions".

Government Support due to Scale 

In East Asia, the state involved itself in printing at a relatively early stage; initially only the government had the resources to finance the carving of the blocks for long works. The 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.

Book Culture

Woodblock printing in China is strongly associated with Buddhism, which encouraged the spread of charms and sutras. In the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese writer named Fenzhi first mentioned in his book "Yuan Xian San Ji" that the woodblock was used to print Buddhist scriptures during the Zhenguan years (AD 627~649).

The oldest existing print done with wood-blocks was discovered in 1974 in an excavation in Xi'an (the capital of Tang-Dynasty China, then called Chang'an), Shaanxi, China, whereby individual sheets of paper were pressed into wooden blocks with the text and illustrations carved into them. It is a dharani sutra printed on hemp paper and dated to 650 to 670 AD, during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Another printed document dating to the early half of the Chinese Tang Dynasty has also been found, the Saddharma pundarika sutra printed from 690 to 699.

An early example of woodblock printing on paper is The Great Dharani Sutra that is dated between AD 704 and 751. It was found at Bulguksa, South Korea in 1966. Its Buddhist text was printed on an 8 cm × 630 cm (3.1 in × 248.0 in) mulberry paper scroll in the early Korean Kingdom of Unified Silla. Another version of the Dharani sutra, printed in Japan around AD 770, is also frequently cited as an example of early printing. One million copies of the sutra, along with other prayers, were ordered to be produced by Empress Shōtoku. As each copy was then stored in a tiny wooden pagoda, the copies are together known as the Hyakumantō Darani (百万塔陀羅尼, "1,000,000 towers/pagodas Darani").

The world's earliest dated (AD 868) printed book is a Chinese scroll about sixteen feet long containing the text of the Diamond Sutra. It was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang and is currently in the possession of the British Library. The book displays a great maturity of design and layout and speaks of a considerable ancestry for woodblock printing. The colophon, at the inner end, reads: Reverently [caused to be] made 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 [i.e. 11 May, AD 868 ].

Japanese woodblock prints

As talked about above, the earliest known woodblock printing dates from 764–770, when Empress Shotoku commissioned one million small wooden pagodas containing short-printed scrolls—typically 6 cm × 45 cm (2.4 in × 17.7 in)—to be distributed to temples. Apart from the production of Buddhist texts, which became widespread from the 11th century in Japan, the process was only adopted in Japan for secular books surprisingly late, and a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of 1590 is the earliest known example.

Ancient Wood Block Print

Leads to Textile Printing in Eurasia

The technique is found through South and Central Asia, and in the Byzantine world for cloth, and by AD 1000 examples of woodblock printing on paper appear in Islamic Egypt. Printing onto cloth had spread much earlier, and was common in Europe by 1300. 

15th-century Europe

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.

Most block-books before about 1480 were printed on only one side of the paper — if they were printed by rubbing it would be difficult to print on both sides without damaging the first one to be printed.

Zuber Cie French Block Print

Further development in East Asia

In East Asia, woodblock printing proved to be more enduring than in Europe, continuing well into the 19th century as the major form of printing texts, especially in China, even after the introduction of the European printing press.

Nianhua were a form of coloured woodblock prints in China, depicting images for decoration during the Chinese New Year.

Wood from a Slow Growing Tree used by the Chinese

The wood which was considered the best is the Veng li mu, which has been identified as the Pyrus Betula folia, Bunge. A cheaper wood generally used for printing proclamations is the tu chung mu. Eucommia ulmoides, Oliv., has been determined to be the tu chung mu. A wood used in Kiangsu is the yin hsing mu, which is one of the names of the Salisburia adiantifolia. Boxwood, Huang yang mu, is obtained from Szechuan, but only in small pieces, which are mainly used for cutting the stamps used for private seals on letters and documents.

In the third volume of the Japanese work, the "So Mokn Sei Fu," a drawing is given of the Huang yang, together with a quotation from the Chinese Materia Medica, which speaks of the tree as growing an inch a year, except in these years which have an intercalary moon, when it grows backwards. From this, it would appear to be a slow-growing tree.

Materials other than paper

Block printing has also been extensively used for decorative purposes such as fabrics, leathers and wallpaper. This is easiest with repetitive patterns composed of one or a small number of motifs that are small to medium in size (due to the difficulty of carving and handling larger blocks). For a multi-colour pattern, each colour element is carved as a separate block and individually inked and applied. Block printing was the standard method of producing wallpaper until the early 20th century and is still used by a few traditionalist firms. It also remains in use for making cloth, mostly in small artisanal settings, for example in India.

William Morris was one artist who used woodblock printing to produce patterned wallpaper and textiles during the mid-to-late Victorian era Examples of Morris' work are housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The museum also holds a number of Morris' original woodblocks, which are still in limited use

Medical benefits of practising Block Printing and the Emergence of its Beauty

The indirect multi-step art form of woodblock printmaking offers therapeutic support through its attributes of unpredictability, containment, multiplicity, and adaptability while accommodating themes of the three Rs of recovery: remediation, restoration, and reconnection. A study conducted with older adults indicated that throughout the workshop progress was made in decreasing social isolation, encouraging learning and creative freedom, increasing use of emotion regulation skills, and eliciting a sense of empowerment.

The process of Relief printmaking was used in this workshop and consists of carving a printing block to remove the negative space of an image. A relief print is then created by inking the remaining surface of the block to be pressed into another surface and can be compared to a stamp.

The aspects of Unpredictability( each design is different), Containment( Slow and precise application), Multiplicity( variety of themes available),  Adaptability( fixing issues as they arise) were key elements of the process. These are the sought after elements which make Block Printing enduring and appealing.

Credits

Wikipedia

Lesley University

India in Balmain Wood Block Collection below

Credits