Printingstory

2016-09-20 点击量：

Use of woodblock printing was very popular in Song Dynasty. At that time there was a woodblock master called “king of knife“ from Xi Shan, Hang Zhou,his technique was known to all and praised by all. In his later years he took a common young man called Bi Sheng as an apprentice. He liked him because of his cleverness and his honesty.
There was once a time, the master carved LANTING XU (Orchideenpavillon) written by the well-known calligrapher Wang Xizhi from the East Jin Dynasty, and Bi Sheng was allowed to look at it by him. Unfortunately Bi Sheng made a careless mistake when the last line would be finished. He touched the master and a word would be carved badly. Bi Sheng was very sadly. At that time he though always about this matter.
One day he walked at the Xihu Lake and discovered that an artist was stamping on a picture. Bi Sheng looked at it carefully and found that the artist strung three stamps together.
This enlightened Bi Sheng. He worked with clay to create lots of dices. After drying he carved a word on the surface and then place them near the fire to warm them.
They would be put in a wooden box according to the rhyme and then be fixed in an iron frame. In this way it was possible to print with ink. Movable type printing technique is easy and frugal.
This kind of new technique was widespread quickly in the world.