WOODBLOCK PRINTING
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methods had been much improved and paper became more economical. Many important works were done in this period. “Tou Pan” (ƒ) or multi-colour printing was also invented. Some of their works are well known to us through the painting manual series of the Ten Bamboo Studio († in Nanking (). Formerly, colour prints were made by first putting different colours on various parts of the woodblock. In the "Tou Pan" technique, different blocks were made and colours of different shades were applied on these blocks. Sometimes as many as hundreds of blocks of different sizes were used to make one print. In this way, very complex colour combinations could be achieved. The invention of “Tou Pan” and “embossing” (##) techniques in printing was attributed to Hu Cheng-jen (‡), the owner of the Ten Bamboo Studio, whose Catalogue of the Ten Bamboo Studio Letter-sheet Design and the Calligraphic and Painting Manual are monumental landmarks in the history of art.
Other important works were produced in the early Ch'ing period. One of them was the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual († 4) compiled and printed by a famous painter Wang Kai (± *) for the Studio of the Mustard Seed Garden in Nanking in the years 1679-1701 of the K'ang Hsi period (). The manual was printed in colour by using the same techniques as the Ten Bamboo Studio and was printed together with painting instructions. It has been widely used by painters as a bible of Chinese painting. The manual has been copied and reprinted many times by different painters and publishers during Ch'ing Dynasty. The copies we can obtain in the market are usually photostat printed copies from the reproductions issued in the Late Ch'ing period. The pictures contained in these new copies are no longer as gorgeous as those in the original ones. We can hardly see an original copy as only a few of them are known, and are being treasured by museums and libraries or private collectors.
During the past thousand years, book printings were centered in Szechuen, Chekiang, Anwhei and Fukien Provinces where paper was also manufactured. The folk or religious printing work had been widespread all over China, but the noted centres of the production were Yang Liu Ching (##), To Hua Wu (✯✯) and Fatshan (*). Yang Liu Ching is a village on the outskirts of Tientsin city (△) and the people living there have been engaged