1633
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting: Miscellaneous is a 1633 by Hu Zhengyan, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a page from a book filled with delicate ink drawings of flowers, rocks, and birds, each printed in soft colors. This book was made using woodblock printing—carved blocks pressed onto paper. The colors line up perfectly, like a puzzle. It was one of the first times color printing looked this smooth in China. If you like this, look up the subject: china, qing dynasty (1644-1911).
Color printing reached a level of perfection in the early 1600s, as seen in this Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting and the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (printed 1679 and 1701). The painterly quality, precision in registering (aligning) the woodblocks, and harmonious colors made them the most successful color print editions in Chinese history. Both editions were printed and compiled in Nanjing, spread nationwide, and had a great impact on the arts in Japan and Korea.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Hu Zhengyan was a Chinese artist, printmaker and publisher. He worked in calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, and seal-carving, but was primarily a publisher, producing academic texts as well as records of his own work.
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