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DAVID H. S. CHAU
on the upper part of the page and the text on the lower. Folk prints became popular at that time. According to a historical reference every year started from the tenth lunar month, and the markets were filled with new calendars, all sizes of door gods, charms and papercut blessings in gold and coloured paper for the coming new year festival. These folk prints thus came to be known as Nien Hua or New Year Prints.
A Russian named Koslov found some old prints from a ruined pagoda in Black Water City, Kansu Province, whilst exploring in China in the year 1908. One of the prints is in a form of a poster-like illustration of 2′5′′ × 1′ in size depicting four historical beauties of four different dynasties printed in black ink on yellowish colour coated paper. According to the printed year mark, it was made in the period of Southern Sung, 1127-1279 AD and is believed to be the oldest surviving Chinese folk print or Nien Hua printed by woodblock in the world. The print is now kept by the Alexander the Third Museum in Moscow.
Woodblock was developed to print paper money at the time of 998-1022 AD in the Sung Dynasty, but did not last long as the woodblock printed paper notes were too easily forged. Later the government changed to using bronze plates instead. The designs on the plates were not engraved, but were moulded by using carved woodblock moulds by the same method used to make picture bricks in Chin Dynasty and the illustrated roof tiles in Han Dynasty. It is the prototype of woodblock printing.
At the time of 1041-1048 in the Northern Sung, a Chinese commoner Bi Sheng developed the use of movable types made of baked clay for printing, and later by using carved woodblocks for the types. This method did not attain extensive use because of the large number of characters used by Chinese: an ordinary book required at least four to five thousand different types.
The woodblock prints of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 AD, are characterised by their boldness and simplicity. Double colour printing was developed in this period. Two blocks were used for printing. Some books printed in this period had the text printed in black and the notes printed in red.
Woodblock printing was extensive by the time of the Wan Li reign of the Late Ming 1573-1619 AD, as paper making
180
DAVID H. S. CHAU
on the upper part of the page and the text on the lower. Folk prints became popular at that time. According to a historical reference every year started from the tenth lunar month, and the markets were filled with new calendars, all sizes of door gods, charms and papercut blessings in gold and coloured paper for the coming new year festival. These folk prints thus came to be known as Nien Hua (+) or New Year Prints.
A Russian named Koslov found some old prints from a ruined pagoda in Black Water City (2), Kansu Province, whilst ex- ploring in China in the year 1908. One of the prints is in a form of a poster-like illustration of 2′5′′ × l' in size depicting four histori- cal beauties of four different dynasties printed in black ink on yellowish colour coated paper. According to the printed year mark, it was made in the period of Southern Sung (*) 1127-1279 AD and is believed to be the oldest surviving Chinese folk print or Nien Hua printed by woodblock in the world. The print is now kept by the Alexander the Third Museum in Moscow.
Woodblock was developed to print paper money (4) at the time of 998-1022 AD in the Sung Dynasty, but did not last long as the woodblock printed paper notes were too easily forged. Later the government changed to using bronze plates instead. The designs on the plates were not engraved, but were moulded by using carved woodblock moulds by the same method used to make picture bricks in Chin Dynasty (A) and the illustrated roof tiles in Han Dynasty (A). It is the prototype of woodblock printing.
At the time of 1041-1048 in the Northern Sung, a Chinese com- moner Butt Sing (44) developed the use of movable types made of baked clay for printing, and later by using carved woodblocks for the types. This method did not attain extensive use because of the large number of characters used by Chinese: an ordinary book required at least four to five thousand different types.
The woodblock prints of the Yuan Dynasty (AM), 1279-1368 AD, are characterised by their boldness and simplicity. Double colour printing was developed in this period. Two blocks were used for printing. Some books printed in this period had the text printed in black and the notes printed in red.
Woodblock printing was extensive by the time of the Wan Li reign (4) of the Late Ming 1573-1619 AD, as paper making
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