Woodblock+Prints

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. The wood block is carefully prepared as a relief matrix, which means the areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife, chisel, or sandpaper leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. It is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. The content would of course print "in reverse" or mirror-image, a further complication when text was involved. The art of carving the woodcut is technically known as //xylography//, though the term is rarely used in English.

Woodblock printed books were created by Japanese artists in Edo period. They were given out to many temples around the country as a thanksgiving (present/gift) for the suppression of the Emi rebellion of 764. Around the eleventh century Buddhist temples in Japan started to pop up and were producing their own Buddhist texts. For many years printing was strictly for the Buddhist sphere, it was way too expensive to allow anyone else to print. Block-books.For example The Old Man Mad About Drawing and Yuan Xian San Ji. Where both text and images are cut on a single block for a whole page, appeared in Europe in the 1460s as a cheaper alternative to books printed by movable type.

Most of Japan's most famous artwork was created using the woodblock prints. It was more time consuming and difficult than the other forms of printing that existed during the time. It was still easier than the last, more traditional, method of writing out books