Woodblock

Printing from a carved surface. East Asian woodblock and the European woodcut, engraving, etching and lithography, the image half of the book, and the technique that put pictures into print long before photography.

Part of Books

24 moments in this segment.

1. 1368 - Yu-hai (Ocean of Jade) woodblock bound volume. Bound Volume in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Chinese Art). China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Digitised image of the artefact itself; dated to the object, 1368–1644.
2. 1860 - Wood Block (France), 1860–70 (CH 18407525). Woodblock printing, text and image cut in relief into a wooden block and inked, the dominant printing method in East Asia for centuries. Modern photograph.
3. 1903 - Dragon and Orchard. 1908. This is a reproduction of the object itself, not a modern photograph of a building.
4. 1903 - Dragon and Orchard - 1999.325.1. Woodblock in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Prints). America. Digitised image of the artefact itself; dated to the object, c. 1908.
5. 1903 - Dragon and Orchard - 1999.325.3. Woodblock in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Prints). America. Digitised image of the artefact itself; dated to the object, c. 1908.
6. 1903 - Dragon and Orchard - 1999.325.4. Woodblock in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Prints). America. Digitised image of the artefact itself; dated to the object, c. 1908.
7. 1956 - Modern magazine magic (1956). An industrial film following a magazine from editorial through platemaking to the finished copy.
8. 2000-03-10 - Audubon expected to fetch four million dollars. Archive news from March 2000 on an Audubon set coming to auction and the record it was expected to set for an illustrated book.
9. 2010 - Song Printing Block 1. A Chinese printing woodblock, the carved block itself, from which pages were printed. Modern photograph.
10. 2010 - Song Printing Block 2. A Chinese printing woodblock, the carved block itself, from which pages were printed. Modern photograph.
11. 2013-11-08 - Illustrated books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A Library of Congress talk on early printed illustrated books and how their images were made.
12. 2014 - Wood Block for Printing. A Chinese printing woodblock, the carved block itself, from which pages were printed. Modern photograph.
13. 2015 - Textile Printing. Woodblock printing, text and image cut in relief into a wooden block and inked, the dominant printing method in East Asia for centuries. Modern photograph.
14. 2015 - Wood Block (France), 1800 (CH 18407531). Woodblock printing, text and image cut in relief into a wooden block and inked, the dominant printing method in East Asia for centuries. Modern photograph.
15. 2015-09-30 - Carving a printing block. The V&A shows how a relief printing block is cut, and why the image must be carved in reverse.
16. 2016 - Mongolian wooden printing block. A Chinese printing woodblock, the carved block itself, from which pages were printed. Modern photograph.
17. 2016-10-10 - The hall that has preserved 80,000 woodblocks. How the Janggyeong Panjeon depositories at Haeinsa regulate humidity and airflow well enough to keep wooden blocks intact for centuries.
18. 2017 - Mongolian Traditional Culture Wooden Printing Blocks. Woodblock printing, text and image cut in relief into a wooden block and inked, the dominant printing method in East Asia for centuries. Modern photograph.
19. 2019-12-02 - Printing The Great Wave. The Tokyo National Museum demonstrates the woodblock process behind Hokusai's most reproduced print.
20. 2020-06-08 - Making a lithographic print. A museum demonstration of stone lithography, the chemical planographic process behind mass-produced images.
21. 2022 - Print Frog® Glass Baren Models. Woodblock printing, text and image cut in relief into a wooden block and inked, the dominant printing method in East Asia for centuries. Modern photograph.
22. 2022-07-09 - Why the world's oldest printed book is in London. Broadcast report on the Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 and taken from Dunhuang by Aurel Stein in 1907, now held at the British Library.
23. 2024 - Method of Block printing Chikankari. Woodblock printing, text and image cut in relief into a wooden block and inked, the dominant printing method in East Asia for centuries. Modern photograph.
24. 2025-09-01 - Intaglio, offset and letterpress compared. An animated explainer distinguishing the three main printing principles by how ink actually reaches the paper.