#Woodblock Printing

[masterpeaces-of-japanese-culture]

Famous Heroes of the Kabuki Stage Played by Frogs, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 19th century

[robin-prints]

[kaalbela]

Hiroshi Yoshida. Temple in the Woods, 1940.

[dandelionjack]

visited the m. c. escher museum in the hague! big day for fans of impossible architectural dreamscapes, optical illusions of shifting dimensions, warped angles and infinite cycles of transformation stretching on towards eternity (me)

last print is my favourite. babygirl you are so susceptible to the spiral

[sonimage1965]

[danikatze]

[ID in alt text]

This Saturday the graphic studio I work at is participating in the annual Heritage Day. We always do demonstrations, but this year I also carved out woodblocks that guests can print themselves.

Three out of four depict (elements of) our building (more information in alt text), and the fourth is an image of a memorial of Alkmaar's independence of the Spanish during the Eighty Year War. This year Alkmaar celebrates the 450th anniversary of that event.

[aventurinetears]

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)

[superficia]

Hiroshi Yoshida Sacred Bridge, 1937, woodblock print

[dreamweaversfavsandthoughs]

Freyja

8"×10"

Mokuhanga print

[jadeseadragon]

Hasui Kawase - The Process of Producing a Woodblock Print

[breezybeej]

Ukiyo-e History: Seiko, final

Maiko Beach (1900s)

The varying darkness around the trees, to me, suggests wind whistling through. As if a dust was kicked up amidst the branches.

Moonlight (1948)

The sky near the horizon has the faintest kiss of orange.

San II (undated)

And to cap off the Seiko segment, something completely different. Not serene or gentle but violent. Festive, actually.

Ukiyo-e History series (desktop)

Ukiyo-e History series (mobile) (will be in reverse order)

[masterpeaces-of-japanese-culture]

Sake no zashiki (Drinking party), by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 19th century

All prints of All Kind of Goldfish

[robin-prints]

experimenting with more complex repeating patterns! Thinking of doing a second block with more detail since I originally imagined these as twisting vines. Not sure what they will turn out to be tho 🌿

[kaalbela]

Hiroshi Yoshida. Snake Charmers, from the series India and Southeast Asia, 1931.

[moononmyfloor]

Hi Producer (正好遇见你) Infodump

Disclaimer: I have no idea about the accuracy of the information shared in the drama, I'm merely transcribing for future reference purposes. Proceed with caution!

.

Ep 20-21: Woodblock Printing

"Modern printing technology can print 10000 pictures in an hour. It only takes months to train an operator. With woodblock printing, each block is carved by hand. It takes five years to train a master craftsman. Eight years to replicate 'Along the River in the Qingming Festival'. From planning to finishing, 'The Night Revels of Han Xizai' took 20 years. Though labor-intensive and time consuming, the result is lifelike and cannot be done by machines."

.

Ancient Painting Mounting

Rather than screenshotting I'll link the timestamp as there's a detailed demo segment.

When the recipe of glue hadn't been modified, moldy glue had a high rate of causing cancer. Therefore, many professional framers were diagnosed with occupational hazards like cancer.

.

Traditional Chinese watermark printing

Slowly adapted to the palace, it went from religious uses to secularity.

Shouhuazhai uses the technique of assembled block gonghua prints as foundation and combined it with painting, carving and printing to recreate many renowned paintings.

"The number of color schemes will decide how many blocks are needed. During the sketching process, a celluloid block is used as a trace cover for the original work. A very thin sheet of yanpi paper is put on top of the already sketched celluloid block for second-time sketching.

Edge cutting of Block carving is the second step of the technique. It is to paste the sketched yanpi paper on the woodblock for carving.

Brush printing is the last step of this technique. After the carving of blocks is complete, the carvings are traced into pictures. The paper, ink, and colors used in printing must be the same as the original work. The ratio of paint, water, and glue is very important. To have the same degree of saturation and shades as the original work, they usually have to go through countless trials. 

To comprehensively recreate ancient paintings, the meaning and spirit of the original painting must be captured. This requires more than the honing of skills.

Due to the temperature and humidity, old paintings and replicas must be handled with great care. When the paintings are too big the connecting point will easily split. This step is called "shang qiang," meaning putting it on the wall. "

.

Emperor Yongzheng's Twelve Beauties

The drama takes this set of famous paintings as a subject and weaves an elaborate story about how they are based on Emperor Yongzheng's beloved Imperial Consort Dunsu of the Nian family (yes, Hua Fei from Zhenhuan Zhuan/Empresses in the Palace), how she had these likenesses done while sick and in seclusion, to reassure the emperor that she's healthy and happy. She has the original paintings "edited" and replicated as in drawn-over to hide the stains of her blood splattering on one spot from a coughing fit, and has her expression fixed to look smiley etc. This is highly likely pure fiction, from what I've gathered the details about the models of these 12 panels are unknown.

Also, additional meta: The drama did a great job recreating one of those 12 looks, but they made it seem like Lady Nian donned this hair just to pose for this picture, that her regular hair is with a Liangbatou.

In her normal getup in the poster and flashback scene she seems to be wearing a Changshan and a skirt, for the painting she's wearing a pifeng over what seems to be a Changshan tucked under the skirt.

Ref:

This is really nice because this is what the Han noblewomen wore in the era (Manchu women wore a single layer floor length robe with no raised collars, and hair in braided buns), and Lady Nian is Han. But the hair puzzles me. From what I heard Liangbatou is a Manchu-exclusive hairstyle, and ofc a million Qing harem drama predecessors didn't give a damn about mishmashing the stylings disregarding the era and ethnicities, BUT this drama already had the right hair done! Why change it back to something from the future and something she wouldn't wear regardless the time?

More straight-to-the-point documentary segment about what woodblock printing is about from 34:12 onwards here.

.

More Hi Producer posts

[victusinveritas]

Paintings of hammerhead sharks depicted in the "Oki National Products Illustration Notes". From Japan, Edo Period, 1735 CE

[Edit: 10/18: This art might be AI art according to some folks who have only found it referenced starting about a month ago in various social media posts (including this one). If I have unconsciously spread AI art around, I apologize. If it turns out this is a verified historical thing, neat. If people keep sending me anonymous messages calling me unpleasant names for posting AI art occasionally, I will continue to block them rather than reply.] Edit 2: 10/18:

here-be-no-space asked:

In case it helps with the shark/AI art stuff, it does appear legit:

Book's name in Japanese for further research from Japanese sources:

隠岐国産物絵図注書

Hat's off @here-be-no-space