Chinese Poetry Paper by the Master of the Ten Bamboo Hall

Book Cover

Introduction

Chinese Poetry Paper by the Master of the Ten Bamboo Hall is a collection of paintings first published by Zhengyan Hu in 1644 in China. In 1952, using the same printing technique as in the first publication, Beijing Rongbao reprinted the book and issued a limited reprint edition of 300 copies. The book has 4 volumes with 16 chapters, each focusing on one category such as birds, insects, animals, flowers, utensils, plants, stones, mountains, people, scenery, etc. The substrate is Chinese Xuan paper, a kind of thin paper fits perfectly with Chinese painting and calligraphy. The book is thread-bound as many old Chinese books are. It is not only the ancient poetry paper book with the largest number of patterns and designs, but also a treasure work combining painting, engraving and printing techniques of the Ming dynasty.

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  moon

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  fish hawk

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  son of the dragon

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  basket

Woodblock Water Printing

The special printing technique adopted by this book is called the woodblock water printing. The book marked the pinnacle of this special technique which represented the highest level of color overprinting technology in ancient times. Color printing in China began during the Song and Yuan dynasties. Color overprinting reached a flourishing period during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, with the emergence color printing pictures. To the end of the Ming Dynasty, the woodblock water printing emerged. It is based on color overprinting and developed from the special multi-color overprinting method in Huizhou city during the Wanli period. The objects in the printed works have the shades of color and ink, and the printed paintings are almost identical to the originals. "Gong Hua" is a special part of woodblock water printing, a kind of engraved printing method without inking. Similar to the modern printing technology of embossing, the two carved concave and convex plates are nested together and arched on the Xuan paper, so that the page can be engraved with various types of light-colored or white ornaments. It uses the protruding lines of the ornaments to show the charm of the painted flowers, birds, fish, insects, artifacts and treasures. "Gong Hua" is also observed in many patterns in this book.

The "Ten Bamboo Hall" which appeared in the name of this book is where the woodblock water printing technique was invented and developed. In 1952, when Beijing Rongbao reprinted the book, it invited the skilled craftsmen from Nanjing Ten Bamboo Hall as the technical force. In order to revive the ancient skills, Ten Bamboo Hall later sent craftsmen to Beijing Rongbao to learn woodblock water printing from a few masters in 1988 and 1989.

Now, the woodblock water printing technique has been certified as an Intangible Cultural Heritage.

History

The reprint version that came out in 1952 should be attributed to two male activists and writers at that time: Xun Lu and Zhenduo Zheng.

Impact and Significance

Though this book was famous in China, it also has a great influence in Japan, and after woodblock water printing was spread to Japan from China, Japanese did a great job in promoting this technique and adapting it to their own works of culture. This book is also regarded as a treasure by the Japanese. The 1952 version book at Kislak center is an example: it was donated by a collector that exclusively collects Japanese items. In recent years, there were also many exhibitions about the book, aiming to facilitate the communication on this book between China and Japan. Starting from the 1940s, this book was translated, printed and published in many Western countries such as the US, Switzerland, and Germany.