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). Rectangular block of five layers of laminated wood, of which the upper one is carved. Straight top, two large and two small scallops at bottom, fitted with summarily indicated swags and bows. First block of a set of three (1956-164-2 and -3).
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 2. Kaifeng Museum, Kaifeng, Henan Province. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com.
10. 2010 - Song Printing Block 1. Kaifeng Museum, Kaifeng, Henan Province. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com.
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). Rectangular block consisting of three layers of wood, of which the upper is carved. Two pairs of large and two pairs of smaller wreaths centering leaves. Double row of small trefoils and dots, in brass, through center, and single row at top and bottom.
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. Wooden printing block for a Buddhist prayer flag at the Nationalities Museum of the Inner Mongolia University (内蒙古大学民族博物馆), Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China.
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. This is picture of a men Hand ,doing block printing Chikankari process, Chikankari is known as different types of design on clothes made by hand in Lucknow (India).
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.