Printmaking

in the end-grain). In Europe beechwood was most commonly used; in Japan, a special type of cherry wood was popular.

Woodcut first appeared in ancient China. From 6th century onward, woodcut icons became popular and especially flourished in Buddhist texts. Since the 10th century, woodcut pictures appeared in inbetweenings of Chinese literature, and some banknotes, such as Jiaozi (currency). Woodcut New Year picture are also very popular with the Chinese.

In China and Tibet printed images mostly remained tied as illustrations to accompanying text until the modern period. The earliest woodblock printed book, the Diamond Sutracontains a large image as frontispiece, and many Buddhist texts contain some images. Later some notable Chinese artists designed woodcuts for books, the individual print develop in China in the form of New Year picture as an art-form in the way it did in Europe and Japan.

In Europe, Woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by using on paper existing techniques for printing on cloth. The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular printswere very crude. The development of hatchingfollowed on rather later than in engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcut more sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwichwas the first to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than in engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that has never been surpassed, and greatly increased the status of the single-leaf (i.e. an image sold separately) woodcut.