Print Culture-1 Flashcards
where did the earliest print technology evolve
The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan
and Korea. This was a system of hand printing.
explain printing in earliest china
From AD 594
onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper – also
invented there – against the inked surface of woodblocks. As both
sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed, the traditional
Chinese ‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side.
Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate, with remarkable accuracy,
the beauty of calligraphy.
why was china a major producer of printing/books? why did it produce for?
The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major
producer of printed material. China possessed a huge bureaucratic
system which recruited its personnel through civil service
examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast
numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. From the
sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up
and that increased the volume of print.
what happened as urban culture boomed in china
By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the
uses of print diversified. Print was no longer used just by scholarofficials. Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected
trade information. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity.
The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry,
autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic
plays.
did woman read and write in china
Rich women began to read, and many women began
publishing their poetry and plays. Wives of scholar-officials published
their works and courtesans wrote about their lives.
how was there a shift in this traditional printing to modern means in china
This new reading culture was accompanied by a new technology.
Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported
in the late nineteenth century as Western powers established their
outposts in China. Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture,
catering to the Western-style schools. From hand printing there was
now a gradual shift to mechanical printing.
how did print culture spread to japan
Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing
technology into Japan around AD 768-770. The oldest Japanese book,
printed in AD 868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, containing six sheets
of text and woodcut illustrations.
where else was r=print seen in japan
Pictures were printed on textiles laying cards and paper money. In medieval Japan, poets and
prose writers were regularly published, and books were cheap
and abundant.
Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices. justify
In
the late eighteenth century, in the flourishing urban circles at Edo
(later to be known as Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings
depicted an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans, and
teahouse gatherings. Libraries and bookstores were packed with
hand-printed material of various types – books on women, musical
instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper
etiquette, cooking and famous places.
