Woodblock Printing Style

It is a style of printing in which blocks of wood are carved using designs. Designs could be anything like a scenic view, illustrations or calligraphy. After the design being carved on the block ink, dye or some sort of colour is applied on it and is pressed against a paper to get your design transferred. The printmaker, who cut the wooden mould, have to do so inversely like a negative, so that when the wood block is transferred on the paper, it’s straight. This method was originated in China and was used by Buddhist to spread the teaching of Buddha. It did not take much time for the artist to discover woodblock printing .It blossomed in various styles during the Song and the Yuan dynasties. In this traditional style drawing, engraving and

These poems were written calligraphy and were arranged in an artistic way. Later on Yamato-e mastered in woodblocks and moved towards more sophisticated styles which allowed them to produce imaginative woodblock prints. After that the new style of Block printing emerged ukiyo-e, which was classical and much more philosophical. It is said that Japanese have perfected the complex technique of colour woodblock prints with magical elegance. Japanese have developed a lot in woodblock printing, other than printing lines and shapes, printing it in colour was possible. Around 1700 the Japanese woodblock prints were either black and white or single or two colour hand coloured print and by 1740 first colour prints were evolved which was mainly using three printing plates,black, red and green. By 1765 they were already considered as true Japanese prints. Thus began the tradition of Japanese colour woodblock printmaking. Colour woodblock printing is a highly complicated process but still many printing plates corresponding to the number of colours are produced. It is said that the highest number of plates produced till now were