Woodblock printing in Japan (木版画, mokuhanga) is a technique best known for its use
in the ukiyo-e artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for
printing books in the same period. Woodblock
printing had been used in
China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type, but was widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868). Although similar to woodcut in Western printmaking in some regards, the mokuhanga technique differs in
that it uses water-based inks—as opposed to western woodcut, which often uses
oil-based inks. The Japanese water-based inks provide a wide range of vivid
colors, glazes, and transparency.
Woodblock-printed books from Chinese Buddhist temples were seen in Japan as early as
the eighth century. In 764 the Empress Kōken commissioned one million small wooden
pagodas, each containing a small woodblock scroll printed with a Buddhist text
(Hyakumantō Darani). These were
distributed to temples around the country as thanksgiving for the suppression
of the Emi
Rebellion of 764.[1] These are the earliest examples of
woodblock printing known, or documented, from Japan.
By the eleventh century, Buddhist temples in Japan
produced printed books of sutras, mandalas, and other Buddhist texts and
images. For centuries, printing was mainly restricted to the Buddhist sphere,
as it was too expensive for mass production, and did not have a receptive,
literate public as a market. However, an important set of fans of the late Heian period (12th century), containing painted
images and Buddhist sutras, reveal from loss of paint that the underdrawing for the paintings was printed from
blocks
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