Woodblock printing

Woodblock printing is a relief-printing technique in which raised areas of a carved wooden block transfer ink to paper or another surface.

Relief printing: A printmaking process in which ink transfers from raised surfaces while recessed areas remain unprinted. Woodblock printing is a relief process: the uncut wood carries the ink.
Chinese woodblock printing: A Chinese method of printing text and images from carved wooden blocks, established by the early medieval period. China provides the earliest sustained history of woodblock printing.
Nishiki-e: A Japanese multicolor woodblock-printing method developed in the eighteenth century. Nishiki-e expanded woodblock printing into richly colored, precisely registered images.
Hishikawa Moronobu: A Japanese artist active in the seventeenth century, associated with the development of ukiyo-e. His illustrated books and prints helped establish ukiyo-e as a distinct style.
Woodcut: A relief-printing method that removes wood from around the lines and shapes intended to print. Woodcut is the principal form of woodblock printing in Western printmaking.
Diamond Sutra: A Chinese Buddhist scripture printed in 868, among the oldest surviving dated examples of a complete printed book. Its dated colophon documents early Chinese book printing from carved blocks.
Ukiyo-e: A Japanese art genre depicting the social life, performers, landscapes, and entertainments of the early modern period. Woodblock printing made ukiyo-e images reproducible and commercially available.
Suzuki Harunobu: An eighteenth-century Japanese artist renowned for delicate, full-color woodblock prints. Harunobu helped popularize multicolor nishiki-e prints in the 1760s.
Wood engraving: A relief-printing technique that cuts fine marks into the end grain of a dense wood block. Its end-grain blocks allow finer lines than the usual plank-grain woodcut.
Korean printing: The history of printing in Korea, including early woodblock texts and later metal movable type. Korean Buddhist printing shows the technique's early development beyond China.

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