Block printing

“ It was easier to transfer the letters than to draw them; easier to cut the letters for a book of twenty or thirty pages than to cut the punches, make the moulds, and cast and compose the types. The blocks having been engraved, the block-printer had the superior advantage. His blocks, like modern stereotype plates, were always ready for use. He could print a large or small edition at pleasure. And what was of much more importance, he could print more legibly from his smooth plates of wood than the amateur typographer could from his uneven surface of lead. ”

“ I think we shall do better to keep on as we have begun,” said Riffe, with the air of one who had settled the matter.
“Block-printing is by no means to be despised,” answered Gutenberg, “in books of a few pages; but in a large book of many pages, we waste time in cutting letters, as they are only of use for that book, and cannot be taken apart and used for another.”
100 “I am opposed to any change,” Dritzhn reiterated; “we are sufficiently involved without any new experiments. We cannot do better than keep on with the block books.” ”

“ During the first half of the fifteenth century, labor was cheap, skill in engraving was not rare, paper was in abundant supply, the art of block-printing was known all over civilized Europe, and there was a growing demand for printed work, but this rude art of block-printing was limited to the production of pictures. ”

“ But a practical printer like Zell must have been able to express himself to that effect if he had really meant to say so; and, as block-printing was not less practised in Germany than in Holland, we could hardly assume that blockbooks printed in Holland would have inspired the German inventor rather than the same books printed in Germany. That testimony xxxviii. speaks of a Donatus printed from wooden blocks maybe ascribed to the notion arising at that time (c. 1533) that block-printing had given rise to typography. ”

“ Outside its safe limitations the technical difficulties are increased, and one is led to make compromises that strain the [Pg 85] proper resources of block printing and are of doubtful advantage.
The temptation to use colour with the key-block comes when one attempts to use the key-block for rendering light and shadow. Its use by the Japanese masters was generally for the descriptive expression of the contours of objects, ignoring entirely their shadows, or any effects of light and shade, unless a shadow happened occasionally to be an important part of the pattern of the design. ”

“ The number of prints obtainable from a set of blocks is difficult to estimate. The Japanese printers are said to have made editions of several thousands from single sets of blocks. The actual wear in printing even of a fine line block is imperceptible, for the pressure is very slight. ”

“ Although no paper has hitherto been found that will take so perfect an impression from colour-blocks as the long-fibred Japanese paper, yet it should be the aim of all craftsmen to become independent of foreign materials as far as possible. There is no doubt that [Pg 55] our paper-makers should be able to produce a paper of good quality sufficiently absorbent to take colour from the wet block and yet tough enough to bear handling when slightly damp.
If a short-fibred paper is made without size, it comes to pieces when it is damped for printing. ”

“ The number of prints to be attempted at one printing will vary with the kind of work and with the printer's experience. The printing may be continued during three days, but if the paper is kept damp longer, there is danger of mould and spotting. With work requiring delicate gradation of colour and many separate block impressions twenty or thirty sheets will be found sufficient for three days' hard work. ”

“ If a block of wood or metal is cut away so as to leave in relief the required shapes of the characters, then by inking the raised surface an impression is easily obtained on paper. A great improvement on such block -printing was effected by making each letter a separate type in cast metal, so that the types might be used over and over again for different works. The converse of surface printing is copper-plate printing: here the design is engraved in intaglio on a sheet of metal, and the ink is contained in the sunken lines of the engraving and not on the surface of the plate. ”

“ Gutenberg, Schœffer, Zell, Mentel and many early printers of France and Italy neglected engraving on wood.404 It may be that this neglect originated in the difficulties of printing types and wood-cuts together,405 or in a despisal of the rude productions of the block-printers,406 and in the intention of the p536 typographers to make emphatic the superiority of their branch. Wood-cuts were freely used by typographers in the heart of Germany and in the Netherlands, the districts where we find the earliest notices of block-printing, but they are generally of a low order. ”

“ It occupies no more space than an ordinary perfecting machine, and only requires four men to attend to it, while thirty men and five ‘two-feeders’ would be required to do the same amount of work by the old system.
If a block be well engraved and carefully used in printing there is practically no limit to the number of impressions that may be taken from it. The blocks in the Christmas number of the Illustrated London News of 1882 had 425,000 impressions taken from them, and they are still good for a new edition of the like number. ”

“ One mechanical peculiarity of the block-books deserves a specific notice: all the block-books were printed on paper. The printers soon discovered that vellum was an intractable material, and they preferred paper as much for its convenience as for its cheapness. An apparent dislike of black ink is equally noticeable; the color in different books varies from a blackish gray to a dingy brown. But their most characteristic feature is the method of printing upon one side of the sheet. One chronicler says that the leaves were so printed that the blank sides might be pasted together. ”

“ The craft has thus not only its special interest as a means of personal expression, but also a more general use as a means of training and preparation for the wider scope and almost unlimited resources of modern printing. The best use of those resources will be made by artists who have been trained under simpler conditions, and have found their way gradually to an understanding of the secrets of æsthetic economy in printing. One of the many paths to that experience is by way of the craft of the wood-block printer. ”

“ I saw in a minute that all the parts of the block are cut away except the parts marked by the lead-pencil and brush; these must stand up higher than the rest of the wood, to take the ink for printing. But I tell you what seemed like magic—taking a proof. The proof-taker just laid the engraved block picture on its back in his press, and ran an inked roller over its face; then he laid a sheet of paper on it; then he pulled the press down on it, and it only took a second's pressure ”

“ Valuable as all these books are, they disappoint the printer. Some of them, though presenting fac-similes in profusion, are not accompanied with proper explanations in the text: others are devoted to one branch only of early printing, such as block-books, or the printed work of one nation only. Two of them are untrustworthy as authorities. Neither from one book, nor from all the books, can a printer get a clear description of the mechanical development of typography. ”

“ Success in printing depends very much on care and orderliness. It is necessary to keep to a fixed arrangement of the position of everything on the work-table and to have all kept as clean as possible. To see the deft and unhurried work of a Japanese craftsman at printing is a great lesson, and a reproach to Western clumsiness.
The positions indicated by the diagram on page 11 will be found to be practical and convenient.
The special tools used in printing are the "baren" or printing pad, which is the only instrument of pressure used, and the printing brushes. ”

“ For printing the block, a press is not needed. The block is adjusted upon a level table, before which the printer stands, with a bowl of fluid ink on one side, and a pile of paper, cut to proper size, on the other. In his right hand the printer holds two flat-faced brushes, fixed on the opposite ends of the same handle. One brush is occasionally dipped into the ink, p115 and afterward swept over the face of the block. This done, the printer places a sheet on the block ”

“ The measurements are the areas of the etched surface, the actual plate or block may be larger, but for this margin no charge is made.
With regard to cost of printing, nothing need be said about blocks which are set up with the type, namely line, swelled gelatine and coarse half tone blocks. The price of printing fine half tones and three colour blocks depends upon the quality of the paper used and the fineness of the work. Photogravure plates must be hand printed (photogravure printing on rotary machines is not considered here) , and skill is required ”

“ The amount of size in the paper is another important factor in the printing of colour. If the paper is too lightly sized the fibres will detach themselves and stick to the damp block. Or if too heavily sized the paper will not take up the colour cleanly from the block, and will look hard when dry. One very soon feels instinctively the right quality and condition of the block, colour, and paper which are essential to good printing; and to print well one must become sensitive to them. ”

“ The peculiar appearance of the presswork of this and of other block-books will be most satisfactorily explained by the hypothesis that they were printed on a press. The hypothesis of printing by friction is a conjecture for which there is no good authority. It seems to have been invented for a purpose. If the early chroniclers of printing had not been so anxious to magnify the merits of the early typographers, and to belittle the printers of block-books, we should have heard nothing of printing by friction. ”

“ Some of the rollers are of leather and others of glue, and, whenever the printing block retires from underneath them, an ink slab takes the place of the block, and imparts more ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight rollers are used, for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the ink as delicately and equally as possible. It is necessary at intervals to damp the block, and when the printer in charge finds this to be the case, he stops the press, and applies a little glycerine and water with a cloth or sponge ”

“ The designing of a print depends most of all upon this development of line and black mass in the key-block. The colour pattern of the print is held together by it, and the form suggested. In the Japanese prints the key-block is invariably printed black or grey. Masses intended to be dense black in the finished print are printed first a flat grey by the key-block, and are then printed a full black from a colour-block like any other patch of colour, the double printing being necessary to give the intensity of the black. ”

“ A batch of sheets of printing paper, prepared and damped as described in Chapter V, lies between boards just beyond the block. The pad lies close to the block at the right on oily paper pinned to the table. To the right also are a dish or plate on which a little ink is spread, the printing brush (broad for the key-block) , a saucer containing fresh paste, a bowl of water, a small sponge, and a cloth. Nothing else is needed, and it is best to keep the table clear of unnecessary pots or colour bottles. ”

“ The inking apparatus is placed at the back of the press, so that while the workman is placing another cover, the ink roller, by automatic action, inks the block ready for the next impression. The inking or printing of the covers is done without heat, so, to avoid loss of time, an arrangement is made that the heating box can be cooled immediately by a stream of water passed through it.
Messrs. Kampe and Co. have just brought out a block­ing ma­chine, which they claim to be su­per­ior to any in the trade. It will block at the rate of 700 to 800 covers per hour. ”

“ The success of this operation depends largely on the quality of the paper, which is soft, thin, pliable, and a quick absorbent of fluid ink.44 If American book papers were substituted for Chinese paper, the process of printing by the brush and with fluid ink would be found impracticable: the sheet would not adhere to the block; the ink would smear on the paper; the brush would not give enough pressure to transfer the ink.
Chinese presswork is done with rapidity. Du Halde said that a printer could perfect, without exertion, ten thousand sheets within one day. ”

“ The rapid improvements which have taken place in the printing press during the last twenty years, afford another instance of saving in the materials consumed, which has been well ascertained by measurement, and is interesting from its connection with literature. In the old method of inking type, by large hemispherical balls stuffed and covered with leather, the printer, after taking a small portion of ink from the ink-block, was continually rolling the balls in various directions against each other, in order that a thin layer of ink might be uniformly spread over their surface. ”

“ It is not necessary to provide an [Pg 41] entire block for each patch of colour, but only the extent of surface required for each coloured portion of the print, as well as for its pair of register marks. Patches of different colour that are not adjacent to one another on the design of the print may be cut on the same block, provided they are not too close for free colouring of the block in printing. Each block also may be cut on both sides, so that there is considerable scope for economy in the arranging and planning of the colour blocks. ”