Print Culture Amd The Modern World

PRINT CULTURE AMD THE MODERN WORLD
THE FIRST PRINTED BOOKS

1. The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea. The
earliest kind of print technology was based on manual labour hand print
2. From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper – also invented there
– against the inked surface of woodblocks.
3. As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed, the traditional Chinese
‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side.
4. Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate, with remarkable accuracy, the beauty of
calligraphy. The art of beautiful and stylized writing is known as Calligraphy
5. The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major producer of printed
material.
HUGE BUREAUCRATIC SYSTEM

● China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil
service examinations.
PRINTING OF TEXTBOOKS
● Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the
imperial state.
INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF CANDIDATES

● From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that
increased the volume of print.
● China – Printing of Books
HOW DID THE USES OF PRINT DIVERSIFY IN CHINA

● By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print
diversified. Print was no longer used just by scholar officials
TO COLLECT TRADE INFORMATION

● Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected trade information.
READING
1. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity.
2. The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of
2.
literary masterpieces, and romantic plays.
PUBLISHING
1. Rich women began to read, and many women began publishing their poetry and plays.
2. Wives of scholar-officials published their works and courtesans wrote about their lives.
3. Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth
century as Western powers established their outposts in China.
4. Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools.
5. From hand printing there was now a gradual shift to mechanical printing.
PRINT IN JAPAN
1. Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around
AD 768- 770.
2. The oldest Japanese book, printed in AD 868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, containing
six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
VARIOUS KINDS OF PRINT USED IN JAPAN.

1. Pictures were printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money.
2. In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were
cheap and abundant.
3. Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices.
4. In the late eighteenth century, in the flourishing urban circles at Edo (later to be known as
Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture, involving
artists, courtesans, and teahouse gatherings.
5. Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material of various types – books
on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper
etiquette, cooking and famous places.
PRINT COMES TO EUROPE

1. In the eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe via the silk route.
2. Paper made possible the production of manuscripts, carefully written by scribes.
3. Then, in 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy after many years of
exploration in China.
4. China already had the technology of woodblock printing. Marco Polo brought this
knowledge back with him.
5. Now Italians began producing books with woodblocks, and soon the technology spread to
other parts of Europe.
. Luxury editions were still handwritten on very expensive vellum, meant for aristocratic
circles and rich monastic libraries which scoffed at printed books as cheap vulgarities.
. Merchants and students in the university towns bought the cheaper printed copies.
. Luxury editions were handwritten on very expensive vellum meant for aristocratic people
and rich monastic libraries.
Merchants and students in the university towns bought cheaper printed copies.
DEMAND FOR BOOKS

. As the demand for books increased, booksellers all over Europe began exporting books to
many different countries. Book fairs were held at different places.
. Production of handwritten manuscripts was also organised in new ways to meet the
expanded demand.
. Scribes or skilled handwriters were no longer solely employed by wealthy or influential
patrons but increasingly by booksellers as well. More than 50 scribes often worked for one
bookseller.
LIMITATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS
. The production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand
for books.
. Copying was an expensive, laborious and time-consuming business.
. Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read
easily.
WOOD BLOCK PRINTING

. Their circulation remained limited. With the growing demand for books, woodblock printing
gradually became more and more popular.
. By the early fifteenth century, woodblocks were being widely used in Europe to print
textiles, playing cards, and religious pictures with simple, brief texts.
PRINT REVOLUTION
. The shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the print revolution after he
invention of the printing press by Gutenberg
. The first book he printed was the Bible. About 180 copies were printed and it took three
years to produce them. By the standards of the time this was fast production.
GUTTENBERG PRINTING PRESS

. Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and grew up on a large agricultural estate. From his
.
childhood he had seen wine and olive presses.
. Subsequently, he learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and also
acquired the expertise to create lead moulds used for making trinkets.Gutenberg adapted
existing technology to design his innovation.
. The olive press provided the model for the printing press, and moulds were used for
casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet.
. By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system. The first book he printed was the Bible. About
180 copies were printed and it took three years to produce them. By the standards of the
time this was fast production.

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PRINT CULTURE AMD THE MODERN WORLD

THE FIRST PRINTED BOOKS

HUGE BUREAUCRATIC SYSTEM

INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF CANDIDATES

HOW DID THE USES OF PRINT DIVERSIFY IN CHINA

TO COLLECT TRADE INFORMATION

VARIOUS KINDS OF PRINT USED IN JAPAN.

PRINT COMES TO EUROPE

DEMAND FOR BOOKS

WOOD BLOCK PRINTING

GUTTENBERG PRINTING PRESS

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