X.Chapter 7.History.The Print and Culture.

   
     Raman's Classes

     Chapter7. Print Culture and the Modern World
     Day 1.Period 1.Page 153-155.

     Topic Introduction, Printed items. The First Printed Books.

     Term
     Calligraphy  the art of beautiful and stylized writing.
     Edo.एदो.Edo is the ancient name of Tokyo.Edo later to be known as Tokyo.
     Ukiyo.उकियो.means to the common people world .It is of pictures of the floating world
    Accordion book.एकोर्डियन. is a traditional Chinese book folded and stitched at the side

     Persons

     Kitagawa Utamaro.कितगावा उतमारो.  born in Edo in 1753, was widely known for his contributions to an art form called ukiyo ( pictures of the floating world ') or depiction of ordinary human experiences, especially urban ones.
     Manet,माने. 
     Monet,मोने. and
     Van Gogh.वान गोग. were the European artists
    Tsutaya Juzaburo.त्सुताया जुज़ाबुरो.   was a Japanese publisher
    Shunman Kubo.शुनमन कुबो.was a Japanese artist who painted the morning scene

     

       Dates 

       594 AD on wards Age of hand printing. Books in China were print by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks

       768-770 AD Import of hand printing technology to Japan from China

       868 AD Publication of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra 
       11^thcnt. Chinese paper reached Europe via the same route

      Understanding Print Culture and the Modern World

      Introduction Printed Materials are in our daily use

      This difficult for us to imagine a world without printed matter. We find evidence of print everywhere around us - in books, journals, newspapers, prints of famous paintings , and also in everyday things like theatre programmes, official circulars ,calendars ,diaries, advertisements, cinema posters at street corners.

      We read printed literature, see printed images , follow the news through newspapers , and track public debates that appear in print . We take for granted this world of print and often forget that there was a time before print. 

      History of print We may not realize that print itself has a history which has , in fact , shaped our contemporary world . What is this history ? When did printed literature begin to circulate? How has it helped create the modern world ? In this chapter we will look at the development of print, from its beginnings in East Asia to its expansion in Europe and in India .

     We will understand the impact of the spread of technology and consider how social lives and cultures changed with the coming of print.
    Earlier Example .Fig 1 – Book making before the age of printing from Akhlaq - i - Nasiri 1595.This is a royal workshop in the 16^thcentuary much before the age of printing began in India. The art of writing and illustrating by hand.

   1 The First Printed Books

    The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea. This was a system of hand printing. 

     Printing by rubbing paper From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper. It also invented there  against the inked surface of woodblocks.  As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed,

    Accordion book the traditional Chinese 'accordion book was folded and stitched at the side.  Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate, with remarkable accuracy, the beauty of calligraphy. 

    The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major producer of printed material.

    A huge bureaucratic system  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. 

    The number of examination From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that increased the volume of print. 

     Urban culture bloomed  By the seventeenth century print being diversified, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print diversified. 

     Print for the use of the traders .It was no longer used just by scholar officials, merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected trade information. 

    Reading habit rapidly became a leisure activity.  The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic plays.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.

    Western printing introduced in late 19 th century 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, 

     1.1 Print in Japan 768- 770 AD Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand printing in Japan around 768- 770 AD

     Diamond Sutra the oldest Japanese book printed in 868 AD contains six sheets ,woodcut illustration.
     And pictures were printed on textiles,playing cards and paper money.
     Printing of visual material  led to interesting publishing practices. 
     In medieval Japan, poets and writers  were regularly published, and books were cheap and abundant.

      Edo In the late eighteenth century, in the flourishing urban circles in Edo ( later to be known as Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans, and house gatherings. 

     Libraries and bookstores were packed with and - printed material of various types - books on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places. 

     Box 1.  Kitagawa Utamaro, born in Edo in 1753, was widely known for his contributions to an art form called ukiyo ( pictures of the floating world ') or depiction of ordinary human experiences, especially urban ones. 

    These prints traveled to contemporary us and Europe and influenced artists like Manet, Monet and Van Gogh. 

     Publishers like Tsutaya Juzaburo identified subjects and commissioned artists who drew the theme in outline.Then a skilled woodblock carver pasted the drawing on a woodblock and carved a printing block to reproduce the painter's lines.  In the process, the original drawing would be destroyed and only prints would survive,

      Fig.  3 – An ukiyo  print by Kitagawa Utamara. 

      Fig.  4 – A morning scene ukiyo print by Shunman Kubo, late eighteenth century.  A man looks out window at the snowfall  women prepare tea perform other domestic duties.