Wood Engraving Water Printing Skills

"Engrave a pattern on the wood and print it on the white paper." This quote describes the traditional Wood Engraving Water Printing Skills that originated from ancient Chinese block printing skills and are an essential part of the Chinese traditional culture. Wood Engraving Water Printing Skills were mature early in the Tang Dynasty. Illustrations on books printed by Wood Engraving Water Printing Skills were popular during the Song and Yuan Dynasties and flourished after the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty, complicated offset printing processes such as "woodblock overprint" and "Gong Hua techniques" were widely adopted, resulting in considerable improvements in the technique. It then spread widely in civil society as a way of printing collections of letter paper, folk New Year pictures, etc., thus becoming China's unique traditional painting reproduction and printing technique.

Shanghai Duoyunxuan has inherited the traditional skills of wood engraving water printing since its inception in 1900 (the twenty-sixth year of Emperor Guangxu's reign, Qing Dynasty), which has become a derivative art integrating painting, wood engraving as well as printing. Its artworks are finely crafted, made from materials meticulously selected, and focus on style, ink, paper, and charm, forming exquisite, elegant and dewy features. The silk-based ones are delicate and fair, while the paper-based ones are antique but flowing, vigorous but gentle. It and Rongbaozhai wood engraving water printing are regarded as the two main schools of Chinese wood engraving water printing, known as "Southern Duo and Northern Rong".

What Duoyunxuan wood engraving water printing inherits are not only traditional skills but also an excellent culture. The artworks are too vivid to be mistaken for the real, which facilitates people's study, appreciation and collection of ancient masterpieces with a unique artistic and cultural research value.