Early Edo period Saga-bon ( 嵯峨本, Saga Books): libretto for the Noh play Katsuragi by Hon'ami Kōetsu. In the Kamakura period from the 12th century to the 13th century, many books were printed and published by woodblock printing at Buddhist temples in Kyoto and Kamakura. However, an important set of fans of the late Heian period (12th century), containing painted images and Buddhist sutras, reveal from loss of paint that the underdrawing for the paintings was printed from blocks. For centuries, printing was mainly restricted to the Buddhist sphere, as it was too expensive for mass production, and did not have a receptive, literate public as a market. īy the eleventh century, Buddhist temples in Japan produced printed books of sutras, mandalas, and other Buddhist texts and images. These are the earliest examples of woodblock printing known, or documented, from Japan. These were distributed to temples around the country as thanks for the suppression of the Emi Rebellion of 764. In 764 the Empress Kōken commissioned one million small wooden pagodas, each containing a small woodblock scroll printed with a Buddhist text ( Hyakumantō Darani). Woodblock printing was invented in China under the Tang Dynasty, and eventually migrated to Japan in the late 700s, where it was first used to reproduce foreign literature. The Japanese water-based inks provide a wide range of vivid colors, glazes, and transparency. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868) and similar to woodcut in Western printmaking in some regards, the mokuhanga technique differs in that it uses water-based inks-as opposed to western woodcut, which typically uses oil-based inks. Woodblock printing in Japan ( 木版画, mokuhanga) is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. To go to the front page of this blog, click on the words "Woodblock Dreams" at the top of the page.Ancient technique for reproducing images or text The Great Wave off Kanagawa ( 神奈川沖浪裏, Kanagawa-oki nami-ura) print by Hokusai Pigments are then applied to the paper by hand using a baren rather than a mechanical press. Water-borne pigments are used rather than oil-based or even water-based printing inks and the pigment is brushed onto the block rather than applied with rollers. Traditional moku hanga differs from western style woodblock printing in several ways. It involves many steps - developing a design, transfering the design to the wood blocks, carving the blocks, choosing paper, printing the blocks - and each step introduces many variables so there are many challenges to this art form. The process, however, is far from simple. Japanese woodblock prints are known especially for their intense use of color and for the fact that the pigments are water-based rather than oil-based.Īll that is needed to produce a Japanese style woodblock print is wood, water, pigment, paper, a few carving tools, some brushes and something to rub the paper with - simple materials that anyone can easily acquire and get started with right away. After a time colors began to be added by hand and then, as woodblock printing became the primary form of commercial printing in Japan, printers began to carve blocks for each color. Woodblock printing was brought to Japan in the 8th century by Buddhists from China and was first used to reproduce religious texts. Moku hanga is the Japanese term for woodblock print ( moku means wood and hanga means print).
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