12 Facts About Woodblock 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.

Woodblock printing existed in Tang China by the 7th century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century.

The oldest text containing a specific date of Woodblock printing was discovered in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang in 1907 by Aurel Stein.

Woodblock printing spread across Eurasia by 1000 AD and could be found in the Byzantine Empire.

Woodblock printing asked Xing Bing how many woodblocks were kept there.

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Woodblock printing prints allowed two mirror images to be easily replicated on a single sheet.

The age of Woodblock printing gave the act of copying by hand a new dimension of cultural reverence.

Western style movable type Woodblock printing-press was brought to Japan by Tensho embassy in 1590, and was first printed in Kazusa, Nagasaki in 1591.

However, western Woodblock printing-press were discontinued after the ban on Christianity in 1614.

The moveable type Woodblock printing-press seized from Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi's forces in 1593 was in use at the same time as the Woodblock printing press from Europe.

In 1605, books using domestic copper movable type Woodblock printing-press began to be published, but copper type did not become mainstream after Ieyasu died in 1616.

Colour is very common in Asian woodblock printing on paper; in China the first known example is a Diamond sutra of 1341, printed in black and red at the Zifu Temple in modern-day Hubei province.