The First Printed Books

The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan

and Korea. This was a system of hand printing. 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.

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. Pictures were printed on textiles,

New words

Calligraphy – The art of beautiful and stylised

writing

Rationalised 2023-24

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Print Culture

playing 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. 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.