Ten Bamboo Studio Colour Woodblock (Douban & Gonghua)

• Cut the picture into a separate block for each part and each colour and print them one after another in register, instead of filling colour into a black key outline: let the edges of the colour areas do the drawing.
• Grade every colour within its block: wipe part of the water-based ink off before printing and overprint transparent tones, so that leaves, petals and rocks fade from dark to pale like a brush wash.
• Set one motif off-centre on blank paper and leave most of the sheet empty: a bamboo stem, a plum branch, a scholar's rock, a bird on a twig or a dish of fruit.
• Give the picture a poem or title in a vertical column of brush calligraphy, beside the motif or on the facing leaf, and let the painter's small red seal be the strongest accent.
• On deluxe leaves and on letter paper, press uninked blocks into the paper to raise clouds, water, veins or highlights in white relief (gonghua). For letter paper, print the motif small and pale so that a letter can be written over it.
• Keep the colours transparent and mostly soft rather than saturated: mineral greens and blues, ochre and rose, with ink greys for branches and rocks, all on warm, unprinted paper; save brighter colour and pattern for fruit and birds.

Nanjing, in the last decades of the Ming dynasty. Wu Faxiang (c. 1578–after 1657), a Nanjing printer and publisher, issued the Luoxuan biangu jianpu (Wisteria Pavilion Catalogue of Letter Papers) in 1626, the first book credited with gonghua blind embossing. Hu Zhengyan (1584/85–1673/74), born in Xiuning County, Anhui, came from a family of physicians (the claim that he practised medicine himself is first attested in the second half of the 19th century) and was active as a painter, calligrapher, seal carver, papermaker and printer; he had settled in Nanjing by 1619. His Ten Bamboo Studio published the Collection of Calligraphy and Painting in 1633 and the Letter Papers in 1644. The Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual (Jieziyuan huazhuan), issued in Nanjing between 1679 and 1701, carried forward its shading and overprinting in its plum, chrysanthemum and bird-and-flower leaves, and a Kyoto publisher reprinted it in part in 1748. After 1701 colour printing in China receded until a revival of decorative letter papers in the late 19th century. In the 1930s Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo revived Hu's letter papers, and Rong Bao Zhai in Beijing and Duoyunxuan in Shanghai still print in the technique (muban shuiyin)

1. Portland Art Museum, 'Splashes of Color: Chinese Woodblock Prints from the You Wei Du Zhai Collection' (exhibition brochure, curated by Maribeth Graybill, 2016), including its sections on the Mustard Seed Garden manual and letter paper: https://portlandartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2016_SplashesofColor_Brochure.pdf
2. Cleveland Museum of Art, Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting, 1633, compiled by Hu Zhengyan, first edition (1984.45): https://clevelandart.org/art/1984.45
3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Page from the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, first edition printed in 1633 (CP76): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/63404
4. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Two Branches of Cherries, Ten Bamboo Studio, ca. 1633 (74-34/14 D), gallery label on the 'bright colors and patterns' of the fruit leaves: https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/7656/two-branches-of-cherries
5. Wikimedia Commons, bird-and-flower leaf (花鳥十五) of the 1633 Collection, taken from 2014 press coverage of the Huntington's copy, with a blue-winged bird on a rock (source of the palette's mineral blue): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birdonabranch.PNG
6. Fine Books & Collections, 'Huntington Acquires Rare Book of 17th-C. Chinese Woodblock Prints' (1 August 2014), on its first-edition copy with 185 pictorial and 139 calligraphy leaves: https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/huntington-acquires-rare-book-17th-c-chinese-woodblock-prints
7. Wikipedia, 'Hu Zhengyan': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Zhengyan
8. Wikipedia, 'Wu Faxiang': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Faxiang
9. Suzanne E. Wright, 'Hu Zhengyan: Fashioning Biography', Ars Orientalis 35 (2008), 129–154 (JSTOR 25481910), cited by the Wikipedia article for the caveat on the physician claim; not read directly
10. Suzanne E. Wright, 'Luoxuan biangu jianpu and Shizhuzhai jianpu: Two Late-Ming Catalogues of Letter Paper Designs', Artibus Asiae 63:1 (2003) (JSTOR 3249694; pages 69–122 in the Wu Faxiang article, 69–115 in the Hu Zhengyan article), the study the Wikipedia articles cite for the letter papers and gonghua; further reading, not read directly
11. Thomas Ebrey, 'The Editions, Superstates and States of the Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting', East Asian Library Journal 14 (2010), 1–119, recommended in the Portland brochure; further reading, not read directly
12. Lü Zongwei and Tang Ke, '百年荣宝斋' (A Century of Rong Bao Zhai), 人民周刊 (People's Weekly), 2018, on the 1934–1941 reissue of the Letter Papers: https://paper.people.com.cn/rmzk/html/2018-04/01/content_1847694.htm
13. China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network, 木版水印技艺 (VIII-77), entries for Rong Bao Zhai (2006), Duoyunxuan (2008) and the Hangzhou Shizhuzhai Art Museum (2014): https://www.ihchina.cn/project_details/14404.html, https://www.ihchina.cn/project_details/14405.html, https://www.ihchina.cn/project_details/14406.html
14. Wereldmuseum, on the Duoyunxuan studio and woodblock-printed paintings: https://amsterdam.wereldmuseum.nl/en/node/3977

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