Mubanshuiyinjiyi
01 · Historical Records
The traditional woodblock water-printing craft of "carving images in wood and printing them on plain paper" originated from China's ancient carved-block printing and is an important component of traditional Chinese culture. As early as the Tang dynasty, the woodblock water-printing craft was already fairly mature. Since the Song and Yuan dynasties, woodblock-printed book illustrations became popular; after the Ming dynasty this fashion reached its zenith.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
In the late Ming, complex overprinting techniques such as "douban" (separate-block) and "gonghua" (embossing) were widely adopted, and woodblock water-printing achieved great technical progress. This technique then spread widely among the people, used to print letter-paper albums and folk New Year pictures, becoming a traditional reproduction and printing craft unique to China. Since its founding in the 26th year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty (1900), Shanghai Duoyunxuan has inherited the traditional woodblock water-printing craft; after more than a century of making, research, and development, Duoyunxuan's woodblock water-printing has become a re-creative art integrating painting, block carving, and printing. Its works are finely and delicately made, with carefully selected materials, emphasizing style, brushwork, and flavor, possessing a refined, elegant, and gracefully moist style. From its founding in the 26th year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing (1900), Shanghai Duoyunxuan has treated woodblock water-printing as a craft requiring constant emulation of ancient methods; over more than a century, the three tasks of carving, printing, and painting have merged in the hands of one group of artisans into a re-creative art. The douban and gonghua that became popular since the late Ming are methods of splitting a painting into many color plates printed in separate passes; the number of plates and the accuracy of registration directly determine the vividness of the finished product. Its two appearances — the delicate and elegant silk-based works and the antique, remote, and richly moist paper-based works — together with the northern Rongbaozhai are called "Duoyunxuan of the South and Rongbaozhai of the North", showing that woodblock water-printing is not a single carving method but two branches differentiated by material and purpose.
Dividing the painting into colour blocks
Engraving the image on wood and printing it on plain paper begins with splitting the painting into colour blocks, one colour to each block.
Cutting the blocks
The image is reversed onto the wood before cutting; the pressure of the knife sets the tone and the depth of the cut sets the ink.
Register-printed colour blocks
Douban is the process of registering many colour blocks onto one sheet in turn, widely used from the late Ming.
Blind embossing with gonghua
Gonghua presses a relief pattern onto the printed sheet without colour, the hardest layer of work beyond colour printing.
Dabbing and drying
A soft brush works on the back of the sheet so colour stays even; album leaves and New Year prints are then dried and flattened before binding.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The silk-based works are delicate and elegant, the paper-based works antique, remote, and richly moist; together with Rongbaozhai's woodblock water-printing they stand as the two great schools of Chinese woodblock water-printing, known as "Duoyunxuan of the South and Rongbaozhai of the North".
Other submitting regions for the same item: Mubanshuiyinjiyi · Mubanshuiyinjiyi.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Duoyunxuan's woodblock water-printing transmits not merely a traditional craft but also an excellent culture. Woodblock water-printed works are so lifelike as to be nearly indistinguishable from the originals, providing convenience for people to study, appreciate, and collect fine calligraphic and painted works of past ages, and possessing unique artistic and cultural-research value. Jiang Min (per the official archive of the associated inheritor): male, Han, born July 1941, a native of Shanghai. He is a representative inheritor of the woodblock water-printing craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third batch, and a woodblock water-printing technician. The "Shizhuzhai Manual of Calligraphy and Painting" (Shizhuzhai shuhua pu) that he led the carving of won the national grand prize at the 1989 Leipzig International Book Art Exhibition. "Xu Wei's Scroll of Assorted Flowers" (Xu Wei zahua tu juan) fully reveals the ink spirit of the original and won a special prize at the 1984 Shanghai Excellent Books Awards held by the Shanghai Publishing Workers' Association.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chongdefu 01-0189
- Wang Liju 01-0190
- Gao Wenying 03-1336
- Jiang Min 03-1337
- Xiao Gang 04-1862
- Wei Lizhong 05-2773
- Zheng Mingchuan
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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