wooden block printing and stenciling
TRANSCRIPT
WOODEN BLOCK WOODEN BLOCK PRINTING AND PRINTING AND
STENCILING STENCILING
WOODEN BLOCK WOODEN BLOCK PRINTING PRINTING
• INTRODUCTION:• Woodblock printing is a technique for printing
text, images or patterns• The idea of using carved wood blocks to print
multiple images on paper probably originated in China. This invention had an enormous cultural impact on human civilisation as it played a key roll in the evolution of communication and thought (Heller 1972).
• Printmaking wood blocks are a minor or unusual forest product and only wood types with specific characteristics are used. The type of wood that is used and the angle it is cut depends on the printing technique (Saff and Sacilotto 1978).
• It was used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220, and from Egypt to the 4th century.[1] Ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the block-books produced mainly in the fifteenth century.
• It is the earliest, simplest and slowest of all methods of textile printing. Block printing by hand is a slow process it is, however, capable of yielding highly artistic results, some of which are unobtainable by any other method.
Design for a hand woodblock printed textile, showing the complexity of the blocks used to make repeating patterns. Evenlode by William Morris, 1883
EvenlodeEvenlode
block-printed block-printed fabric.fabric.
Techniques of Block Techniques of Block Printing Printing
• The wood block is prepared as a relief matrix, which means the areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife, chisel, or sandpaper leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level.
• The block was cut along the grain of the wood. It is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print.
• The content would of course print "in reverse" or mirror-image, a further complication when text was involved. The art of carving the woodcut is technically known as xylography, though the term is rarely used in English.
• For colour printing, multiple blocks are used, each for one colour, although overprinting two colours may produce further colours on the print. Multiple colours can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks.
• Simple yet striking 20th century Indian printed cloth.
There are a number of There are a number of processes of block processes of block
PrintingPrinting Direct Block Printing • In this technique, the cotton or silk cloth is first bleached.
Then the fabric is dyed, unless a light background is desired. Thereafter, the fabric is printed using carved blocks, first the outline blocks, then the ones to fill color.
Resist Printing • In the resist technique, areas that are to be
protected from the dye are covered with a mixture of clay and resin. The dyed fabric is then washed. The dye spreads into the protected areas through cracks, producing a rippled effect. Block prints are then used to create further designs.
Discharge Printing
• In this technique, the fabric is dyed. Then, a chemical is used to remove the dye from the portions that are to have designs in a different color. These portions are then treated, so they may be re-colored.
Stamps carved from Stamps carved from calabash shell for printing calabash shell for printing
adincra clothadincra cloth
PROCESSPROCESS• This process, though considered by some to be
the most artistic, is the earliest, simplest and slowest of all methods of printing.
• In this process, a design is drawn upon, or transferred to, a prepared wooden block. A separate block is required for each distinct color in the design.
• A block cutter carves out the wood around the heavier masses first, leaving the finer and more delicate work until the last so as to avoid any risk of injuring it during the cutting of the coarser parts. When finished, the block presents the appearance of flat relief carving, with the design standing out.
• Fine details are very difficult to cut in wood, and, even when successfully cut, wear down very rapidly or break off in printing. They are therefore almost invariably built up in strips of brass or copper, bent to shape and driven edgewise into the flat surface of the block. This method is known as coppering.
• To print the design on the fabric, the printer applies color to the block and presses it firmly and steadily on the cloth, ensuring a good impression by striking it smartly on the back with a wooden mallet.
• The second impression is made in the same way, the printer taking care to see that it fits exactly to the first, a point which he can make sure of by means of the pins with which the blocks are provided at each corner and which are arranged in such a way that when those at the right side or at the top of the block fall upon those at the left side or the bottom of the previous impression the two printings join up exactly and continue the pattern without a break.
• Each succeeding impression is made in precisely the same manner until the length of cloth is fully printed. When this is done it is wound over the drying rollers, thus bringing forward a fresh length to be treated similarly.
• If the pattern contains several colors the cloth is usually first printed throughout with one, then dried, and printed with the second, the same operations being repeated until all the colors’ are printed.
• Block printing by hand is a slow process it is, however, capable of yielding highly artistic results, some of which are unobtainable by any other method.
• Design for a hand woodblock printed textile, showing the complexity of the blocks used to make repeating patterns in the later 19th century. Tulip and Willow by William Morris, 1873.
The historyThe history• Wood blocks have been used for printing for at least two
thousand years and their earliest application was probably for designs on textiles in China, India and Egypt.
• The Chinese invention of Woodblock printing, at some point before the first dated book in 868 (the Diamond Sutra), produced the world's first print culture. According to A. Hyatt Mayor, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "it was the Chinese who really discovered the means of communication that was to dominate until our age."[
• Woodblock printing was better suited to Chinese characters than movable type, which the Chinese also invented, but which did not replace woodblock printing.
• Western printing presses, although introduced in the 16th century, was not widely used in China until the 19th century. China, along with Korea, was one of the last countries to adopt them.
• Woodblock printing for textiles, on the other hand, preceded text printing by centuries in all cultures, and is first found in China at around 220, then Egypt in the 4th century,and reached Europe by the 14th century or before, via the Islamic world, and by around 1400 was being used on paper for old master prints and playing cards.
• In another analysis Hyatt Mayor states that "a little before 1400 Europeans had enough paper to begin making holy images and playing cards in woodcut. They need not have learned woodcut from the Chinese, because they had been using woodblocks for about 1,000 years to stamp designs on linen."
• Printing in China was further advanced by the 11th century, as it was written by the Song Dynasty scientist and statesman Shen Kuo (1031-1095) that the common artisan Bi Sheng (990-1051) invented ceramic movable type printing.
• Then there were those such as Wang Zhen (fl. 1290-1333) and Hua Sui (1439-1513), the former of whom invented wooden movable type printing in China,the latter of whom invented metal movable type printing in China.
• Movable type printing was a tedious process if one were to assemble thousands of individual characters for the printing of simply one or a few books, but if used for printing thousands of books, the process was efficient and rapid enough to be successful and highly employed.
• Indeed, there were many cities in China where movable type printing, in wooden and metal form, was adopted by the enterprises of wealthy local families or large private industries.
• The Qing Dynasty court sponsored enormous printing projects using woodblock movable type printing during the 18th century. Although superseded by western printing techniques, woodblock movable type printing remains in use in isolated communities in China.
• The art of wood block printing on textiles was also practiced in Europe during the early Middle Ages and reached a climax of perfection in eighteenth century France and England (Bramwell 1982).
• One of the first forms of wood block printing done on paper (otherwise known as block book printing) was carried out by Buddhists to transcribe and disseminate the text and images of Buddhist deities
• Printing with the same block of wood offered a way to mass-produce, in scroll form, the sacred words and images (Heller 1972).
• One of the earliest known Chinese woodcuts of text and image is the 17-foot long Diamond Sutra, which was discovered in a walled-up cave in 1907 and dates from 868 A.D.
• The assured style and beauty of this wood block print suggests that in China wood block printing must have already undergone a long period of maturation, many centuries before western woodcuts developed (Heller 1972).
• One of the oldest surviving records of European wood block printing is a fragment of a block depicting a Crucifixion. This block is known as the Bois Protat and is dated to 1380 (~500 years after the oldest known Chinese wood block print) (Heller 1972).
• At the beginning of the fifteenth century, woodcuts were commonly used to provide cheap illustrations of religious subjects. Religious texts were also cut into the same block and the resulting prints were hand water coloured. Later that century woodcuts were beginning to appear as illustrations alongside type in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.
• A number of great artists such as Durer, Holbein and Cranach also created woodcuts with the assistance of professional cutters (Bramwell 1982).
• During the eighteenth century boxwood blocks were used for printing with fast running printing presses. This was because the resilience of the material was ideally suited to the printing presses and the fine grain made the wood ideal for fine and detailed work.
• In the nineteenth century woodblocks were mainly used for cheap commercial illustrations of all kinds (Bramwell 1982) and today is enjoying a resurgence of interest among visual artists and letterpress printers alike.
Development of block Development of block printingprinting
• Yuan Dynasty woodblock edition of a Chinese play
• The use of round "cylinder seals" for rolling an impress onto clay tablets goes back to early Mesopotamian civilization before 3,000 BC, where they are the commonest works of art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images.
• In both China and Egypt, the use of small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In Egypt, Europe, and India, the printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus; this was probably also the case in China.
• The process is essentially the same—in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until at least the seventeenth century.
• The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk printed with flowers in three colors from the Han dynasty (before AD 220 ).
• The earliest Egyptian printed cloth dates from the 4th century.[1] But the dry conditions in Egypt are exceptionally good for preserving fabric compared to, for example, India.
• It is clear that woodblock printing developed in Asia several centuries before Europe.
• The Chinese and Koreans were the first to use the process to print solid text, and equally that, much later, in Europe the printing of images on cloth developed into the printing of images on paper (woodcuts).
• It is also now established that the use in Europe of the same process to print substantial amounts of text together with images in block-books only came after the development of movable type in the 1450s.
• It is not clear if the Egyptian printing of cloth was learned from China, or elsewhere, or developed separately.
• Block printing, called tarsh in Arabic was developed in Arabic Egypt during the 9th-10th centuries, mostly for prayers and amulets. It is unclear whether the print blocks were made from metal or wood or other materials.
• This technique, however, appears to have had very little influence outside of the Muslim world. Though Europe adopted woodblock printing from the Muslim world, initially for fabric, the technique of metal block printing was also unknown in Europe.
• Block printing later went out of use in Islamic Central Asia after movable type printing was introduced from China
• Colored woodcut Buddha, 10th century, China
• In China, an alternative to woodblock printing was a system of reprography since the Han Dynasty using carved stone steles to reproduce pages of text
• In India the main importance of the technique has always been as a method of printing textiles, which has been a large industry for centuries.
• Large quantities of printed Indian silk and cotton were exported to Europe throughout the Modern Period.
• The three necessary components for woodblock printing are the wood block, which carries the design cut in relief; dye or ink, which had been widely used in the ancient world; and either cloth or paper, which was first developed in China, around the 3rd or 2nd century BC. Woodblock printing on papyrus seems never to have been practised, although it would be possible.
• Because Chinese has a character set running into the thousands, woodblock printing suits it better than movable type to the extent that characters only need to be created as they occur in the text. Although the Chinese had invented a form of movable type with baked clay in the 11th century, and metal movable type was introduced in Korea in the 13th century, woodblocks continued to be preferred owing to the formidable challenges of typesetting Chinese text with its 40,000 or more characters.
• Also, the objective of printing in the East may have been more focused on standardization of ritual text (such as the Buddhist canon Tripitaka, requiring 130,000 woodblocks), and the purity of validated woodblocks could be maintained for centuries.
• When there was a need for the reproduction of a text, the original block could simply be brought out again, while moveable type necessitated error-prone composition of distinct "editions".
• In China, Korea, and Japan, the state involved itself in printing at a relatively early stage; initially only the government had the resources to finance the carving of the blocks for long works.
• The difference between East Asian woodblock printing and the Western printing press had major implications for the development of book culture and book markets in East Asia and Europe.
EARLY BOOKSEARLY BOOKS• The intricate frontispiece
of the Diamond Sutra from Tang Dynasty China, the world's earliest dated printed book, AD 868 (British Museum)
• Woodblock printing in China is strongly associated with Buddhism, which encouraged the spread of charms and sutras.
• In the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese writer named Fenzhi first mentioned in his book "Yuan Xian San Ji" that the woodblock was used to print Buddhist scriptures during the Zhenguan years (AD 627~649).
• The oldest known Chinese surviving printed work is a woodblock-printed Buddhist scripture of Wu Zetian period (AD 684~705); discovered in Turfan, Xinjiang province, China in 1906, it is now stored in a calligraphy museum in Tokyo, Japan.
• A woodblock print of the Dharani sutra dated between AD 704 and 751 was found at Bulguksa, South Korea in 1966.
• Its Buddhist text was printed on a mulberry paper scroll 8 cm wide and 630 cm long in the early Korean Kingdom of Unified Silla.
• Another version of the Dharani sutra, printed in Japan around AD 770, is also frequently cited as an example of early printing. One million copies of the sutra, along with other prayers, were ordered
• to be produced by Empress Shōtoku. As each copy was then stored in a tiny wooden pagoda, the copies are together known as the Hyakumantō Darani (百万塔陀羅尼 , "1,000,000 towers/pagodas Darani").
• The world's earliest dated (AD 868) printed book is a Chinese scroll about sixteen feet long and containing the text of the Diamond Sutra. It was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein in Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, and is now in the British Museum.
• The book displays a great maturity of design and layout and speaks of a considerable ancestry for woodblock printing.
• The colophon, at the inner end, reads: Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11 May, AD 868 ].
• Finely crafted books—like the Bencao (materia medica) shown here—were produced in China as early as the ninth century.[8]
• In late 10th century China the complete Buddhist canon Tripitaka of 130,000 pages was printed with blocks, which took between 1080 and 1102, and many other very long works were printed.
• Early books were on scrolls, but other book formats were developed. First came the Jingzhe zhuang or "sutra binding", a scroll folded concertina-wise, which avoided the need to unroll half a scroll to see a passage in the middle.
• About AD 1000 "butterfly binding" was developed; two pages were printed on a sheet, which was then folded inwards. The sheets were then pasted together at the fold to make a codex with alternate openings of printed and blank pairs of pages.
• In the fourteenth century the folding was reversed outwards to give continuous printed pages, each backed by a blank hidden page. Later the bindings were sewn rather than pasted.
• Only relatively small volumes (juan) were bound up, and several of these would be enclosed in a cover called a tao, with wooden boards at front and back, and loops and pegs to close up the book when not in use.
Woodblock printing in Woodblock printing in EurasiaEurasia
• The technique is found through East and Central Asia, and in the Byzantine world for cloth, and by AD 1000 examples of woodblock printing on paper appear in Islamic Egypt.
• Printing onto cloth had spread much earlier, and was common in Europe by 1300.
• Woodblock printing on paper of images only began in Europe around 1400, almost as soon as paper became available, and the print in woodcut, later joined by engraving, quickly became an important cultural tradition for popular religious works, as well as playing cards and other uses.[2]
• Many early Chinese examples, such as the Diamond Sutra (above) contain images, mostly Buddhist, that are often elaborate.
• Later, some notable artists designed woodblock images for books, but the separate artistic print did not develop in China as it did in Europe and Japan. Apart from devotional images, mainly Buddhist, few "single-leaf" Chinese prints were made until the nineteenth century.
• Three episodes from a block-book Biblia Pauperum illustrating typological correspondences between the Old and New Testaments: Eve and the serpent, the Annunciation, Gideon's miracle
• Block-books, where both text and images are cut on blocks, appeared in Europe in the 1460s as a cheaper alternative to books printed by movable type.[9] A woodcut is an image, perhaps with a title, cut in a single block and used as a book illustration with adjacent text printed using movable type. The only example of the blockbook form that contains no images is the school textbook Latin grammar of Donatus.
• The most famous block-books are the Speculum Humanae Salvationis and the Ars moriendi, though in this the images and text are on different pages, but all block-cut. The Biblia pauperum, a Biblical picture-book, was the next most common title, and the great majority of block-books were popular devotional works. All block-books are fairly short at less than fifty pages. While in Europe movable metal type soon became cheap enough to replace woodblock printing for the reproduction of text, woodcuts remained a major way to reproduce images in illustrated works of early modern European printing. See old master print.
• Most block-books before about 1480 were printed on only one side of the paper — if they were printed by rubbing it would be difficult to print on both sides without damaging the first one to be printed. Many were printed with two pages per sheet, producing a book with opening of two printed pages, followed by openings with two blank pages (as earlier in China). The blank pages were then glued together to produce a book looking like a type-printed one. Where both sides of a sheet have been printed, it is presumed a printing-press was used.
•
• Large Waterfall by Hiroshige, a ukiyo-e artist• The earliest woodblock printing known is in colour—
Chinese silk from the Han Dynasty printed in three colours.[3]
• On paper, European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany in 1508 and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts.
• Colour is very common in Asian woodblock printing on paper; in China the first known example is a Diamond sutra of 1341, printed in black and red at the Zifu Temple in modern day Hubei province.
• The earliest dated book printed in more than 2 colours is Chengshi moyuan, a book on
• ink-cakes printed in 1606 and the technique reached its height in books on art published in the first half of the seventeenth century.
• Notable examples are the Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio of 1633, and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and 1701.
• In Japan, a multi-colour technique, called nishiki-e ("brocade pictures"), spread more widely, and was used for prints, from the 1760s on. Japanese woodcut became a major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting.
• In both Europe and Japan, book illustrations were normally printed in black ink only, and colour reserved for individual artistic prints. In China, the reverse was true, and colour printing was used mainly in books on art and erotica.
JAPANJAPAN
• Main article: Woodblock printing in Japan• The earliest known woodblock printing dates
from 764-770, when an Empress commissioned one million small wooden pagodas containing short printed scrolls (typically 6 x 45 cm) to be distributed to temples.
• Apart from the production of Buddhist texts, which became widespread from the eleventh century in Japan, the process was only adopted in Japan for secular books surprisingly late, and a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of 1590 is the earliest known example.
• Though the Jesuits operated a movable type printing-press in Nagasaki, printing equipment brought back by Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army from Korea in 1593 had far greater influence on the development of the medium. Four years later, Tokugawa Ieyasu, even before becoming shogun, effected the creation of the first native movable type,using wooden type-pieces rather than metal. He oversaw the creation of 100,000 type-pieces, which were used to print a number of political and historical texts.
• An edition of the Confucian Analects was printed in 1598, using a Korean moveable type printing press, at the order of Emperor Go-Yōzei.
• This document is the oldest work of Japanese moveable type printing extant today. Despite the appeal of moveable type, however, it was soon decided that the running script style of Japanese writings would be better reproduced using woodblocks, and so woodblocks were once more adopted; by 1640 they were once again being used for nearly all purposes
• It quickly gained popularity among artists of ukiyo-e, and was used to produce small, cheap, art prints as well as books. Japan began to see something of literary mass production.
• The content of these books varied widely, including travel guides, advice manuals, kibyōshi (satirical novels), sharebon (books on urban culture), art books, and play scripts for the jōruri (puppet) theatre. Often, within a certain genre, such as the jōruri theatre scripts, a particular style of writing would come to be the
• standard for that genre; in other words, one person's personal calligraphic style was adopted as the standard style for printing plays.
Further development of Further development of woodblock printing in woodblock printing in
East AsiaEast Asia
• Woodblock printing, Sera Monastery, Tibet. The distinctive shape of the pages goes back to Palm leaf manuscripts in ancient Buddhist India
• In East Asia, woodblock printing proved to be more enduring than in Europe, continuing well into the 19th century as the major form of printing texts, especially in China, even after the introduction of the European printing press.
• Jesuits stationed in China in the 16th and 17th centuries indeed preferred to use woodblocks for their own publishing projects,noting how inexpensive and convenient it was.
• Only with the introduction of more mechanized printing methods from the West in the 19th century did printing in East Asia move towards metal moveable type and the printing press
• In countries using Arabic, Turkish and similar scripts, works, especially the Qu'ran were sometimes printed by lithography in the nineteenth century, as the links between the characters require compromises when movable type is used which were considered inappropriate for sacred texts.
Spread and Decline of Spread and Decline of Woodblock PrintingWoodblock Printing
• The spread of woodblock printing beyond China is illustrative of this technology’s appeal. First, the technique spread through East and Central Asia, and by 1000 A.D. examples of woodblock printing appear in Islamic Egypt, and by the late Middle Ages woodblock printing has become an important force in Europe.
• While in Europe moveable metal type would soon replace woodblock printing for the reproduction of text, woodblock printing remained a major way to reproduce images in illustrated works of early modern European printing.
• In East Asia, woodblock printing proved to be more enduring, continuing well into the 19th century as the major form of printing, especially in China, even after the introduction of the Gutenberg printing press.
• Jesuits stationed in China in the 16th and 17th centuries indeed preferred to use woodblocks for their own publishing projects, noting how inexpensive and convenient it was.
• Only with the introduction of more mechanized printing methods from the West in the 19th century did printing in East Asia move towards metal moveable type and the printing press.
StencillingStencilling
Introduction: • Visual diagram
of a basic stencil.
• The art of stenciling is very old. It has been applied to the decoration of textile fabrics from time immemorial by the Japanese, and, of late years, has found increasing employment in Europe for certain classes of decorative work on woven goods for furnishing purposes.
• The pattern is cut out of a sheet of stout paper or thin metal with a sharp-pointed knife, the uncut portions representing the part that is to be reserved or left uncoloured.
• The sheet is now laid on the material to be decorated and colour is brushed through its interstices.
• It is obvious that with suitable planning an all over pattern may be just as easily produced by this process as by hand or machine printing, and that moreover, if several plates are used, as many colors plates may be introduced into it.
• The peculiarity of stenciled patterns is that they have to be held together by ties, that is to say, certain parts of them have to be left uncut, so as to connect them with each other, and prevent them from falling apart in separate pieces.
• For instance, a complete circle cannot be cut without its center dropping out, and, consequently, its outline has to be interrupted at convenient points by ties or uncut portions. Similarly with other objects.
• The necessity for ties exercises great influence on the design, and in the hands of a designer of indifferent ability they may be very unsightly.
• On the other hand, a capable man utilizes them to supply the drawing, and when thus treated they form an integral part of the pattern and enhance its artistic value whilst complying with the conditions and the process.
• For single-colour work a stenciling machine was patented in 1894 by S. H. Sharp. It consists of an endless stencil plate of thin sheet steel that passes continuously over a revolving cast iron cylinder. Between the two the cloth to be ornamented passes and the colour is forced on to it, through the holes in the stencil, by mechanical means.
• Deerfield society of blue and white needle work table square “pomegranates”.1900-16 appliqué and embroidery on linen.15*15 ½ .memorial hall museum collection. Deerfield massachusetts.
Process of stenciling Process of stenciling
A woman stenciling and applying color color to a design.
History of StencilsHistory of Stencils• Stenciling has re-emerged as a favored
decorative technique and interior designers, architects, artisans and professional decorative painters are choosing stenciled finishes as a beautiful, versatile and unique option for decorative design on walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, textiles and cabinetry.
• The word stencil comes from the French word 'pochoir'. Stencil technique used in visual art is still referred to as 'pochoir. A stencil is a template which is used repeatedly to paint or draw patterns, shapes, letters or symbols. Stencils are formed by removing sections from the template material in the form of a letter or a design.
• This creates essentially a 'negative image'. The template can then be used to create impressions of the stenciled image by applying pigment on the surface of the template and through the removed sections, leaving a reproduction of the stencil on the underlying surface. Sections of the remaining template which are isolated inside removed parts of the image are called 'islands'. All islands must be connected to other parts of the template with 'bridges' which are additional strips or sections of narrow template material which are not removed.
Stencils: An Ancient Stencils: An Ancient TraditionTradition
• Hand print painting from Chauvet Cave, France.
• Stenciling has a long and rich history. The art of stenciling has existed since the Upper Paleolithic era, approximately 40,000-10,000 years ago, with the earliest known example of "stencil" use dated to 32,000 years ago. Painted wall art reached high artistry during this period and some of the best known uses of stencils are found in cave paintings in Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain. A common motif in cave paintings was hand tracings. Hands were placed on rock walls and the artist would spray pigment from his mouth around the outline of his hand. Primitive blowpipes made from hollowed-out reeds and bones may also have been used to dispense pigments
• Tonga Bark Cloth
• Early South Sea islanders also used stencils. In Fiji, banana and bamboo leaves were used as stencil material. Perforated patterns were cut into the leaves and a vegetable dye was pressed through the holes onto 'tapa', or bark cloth. Stenciled geometric borders were a favored design for clothing and textiles.
• In Indonesia stenciling was used in combination with 'batik'. Batik is a form of pattern design which uses wax to shield parts of the cloth from the dyeing process.
• In Ancient Egypt stencils were used for the decoration of tombs. Artists stenciled hieroglyphs, figures and animals onto tomb walls.
• The resulting images were then incised around the outer edges of the design by sculptors to make a low relief, which would then be plastered and painted
• Strong vibrant colors such as red oxide and yellow ochre were characteristically used in tomb decoration.
• Ancient Greeks and Romans found that the simple geometric, linear, and silhouetted forms they favored were ideal for stenciling. The Greeks outlined their mosaic designs with stencils; the Pompeiians used stencils to decorate their astonishing interior wall surfaces; the Romans used stencils to create lettered signboards offering directions to the Colisseum for the general public. Both Greeks and Romans used stencils as a decorative tool for painting murals..
• Elsewhere in Europe, it is known that Theodoric (475-526 A.D.), the king of the Ostrogoths, used a stencil made from gold ingot to sign his name to official documents
The Asian Tradition of The Asian Tradition of Fine Stencil MakingFine Stencil Making
• The ancient Chinese had also developed their own stencil technique using mulberry fibers to a make a type of 'paper' for stencil templates. Many thin layers of fibers were placed on top of each other, then pressed together and varnished for stability. The early Chinese used stencils mainly for the decoration of cloth.
• With the invention of paper in 105 A.D., the Chinese turned to this new medium and developed cut paper stencils. Now, 50-60 thin layers of paper could be cut at one time.
• The beginning of limited mass production of stenciled images began during the Six Dynasties period (500-600 A.D.) when the Chinese marketed images of the Buddha.
• They also used paper stencils to design embroidery patterns. The template was laid upon cloth and marked and the sewer then had a pattern to follow for the design. Because cuts on paper could be made finer and more delicate than on mulberry bark cloth, complicated patterns using paper stencils could now be developed for the intricate cloth decoration and porcelain design that was favored by the fashionable and affluent.
• In Japan stenciling had been an art form for over 1,000 years. Traditionally, the stencil-making process involved curing sheets of mulberry bark in persimmon juice. The cured sheets were stacked and cut with a sharp curved blade.
• Katagami Stencil cut from washi paper
•An artisan could cut several sheets at a time, ensuring identical patterns on all of them. With the advent of paper, the Japanese turned also to paper-cut stencils and developed their own system of stencil cutting using "washi" paper.
• Katagami Stencil cut from washi paper. • The Japanese had also developed and
perfected a dye-resist technique for patterning and coloring cloth using stencils and rice paste. 'Katagami' is the Japanese art of making paper stencils for kimono printing.
• Multiple layers of thin washi paper were bonded together with a glue extracted from the persimmon, which make a strong, flexible brown-colored paper.
• The paper was cut with a variety of knives and punches. The resulting designs were intricate and very fragile. For kimono printing the stencils were stabilized by attaching them to a fine silk net.
• Printed Katagami Stencil
•In the past, human hair had been used instead of silk but silk proved to be finer and less likely to warp. A stencil was generally not used for more than one kimono, although multiple stencils could be cut at a time.
• When the Japanese expanded and developed the use of silk threads as 'bridges" the most delicate of patterns could be realized.
• The threads allowed isolated parts of the stencil to stay attached to the main template and when pigment was applied over the stencil, the silk 'lines' left after removing the stencil had all but disappeared.
• The finest of details and most intricate of patterns were achieved during this period of stencil design. The silkscreening process has its origins in katagami, with its fine network of silk threads.
• Katazome dye-resist print using Katagami stencils
• For printing, the Japanese used a dye-resist method using a rice and flour paste pressed through a stencil.
• This process was called 'katazome' and consisted of applying the paste through a stencil using a brush or tool such as a palette knife.
• Pigment was added by hand painting, immersion or both. Where the paste mixture covered and permeated the cloth, dye applied later would not penetrate.
• By re-aligning a stencil multiple times and re-applying rice paste each time the stencil was moved, large areas of fabric could be patterned. It was a painstaking and time-consuming process, but the beauty and singularity of kimono design using katagami and katazome is evident still today.
• Katazome
• Katazome provided a more economical way for overall patterns similar to expensive woven brocades to be achieved on cotton or linen. Both katazome and katagami developed into art forms of their own. Besides cloth design for apparel, during the Kamokura period stenciled designs were used on the leather armor of Samurai and on the leather harnesses and trappings of their horses.
Stencil Art During the Stencil Art During the Middle Ages and the Middle Ages and the
RenaissanceRenaissance
• From China and Japan the art and knowledge of stenciling spread along the trade routes to the Middle East, eventually reaching Turkey by the 8th century. By the Middle Ages the art of stenciling had reached Europe where conquests, crusades and pilgrimages dispersed this knowledge from the east to Germany, Italy, France, Spain and England.
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• In Italy, France, and Spain stencils were used in combination with wood block printing to illuminate manuscripts, print religious tracts and images, and to decorate religious paintings, murals and other monastic art. In Germany, Pope Boniface IX (1389-1404) had extended the grant of indulgences to locations other than just Rome, such as Munich and Cologne. The increase of pilgrims grew as there were now more sites available to them to make their pilgrimages
• The distances were shorter and thus less costly. Gaining remission for their sins was the object of a pilgrimage and as the number of travelers increased, so did the demand for religious tracts and pictures. Mass production of these 'art' pieces were offered at shrines where thousands of people gathered. Stencils were used to apply colors onto wood block printed images. The Germans even developed a saying at the time: "Alle zwolf Apostle auf einen streich machen' (to paint all the apostles at one stroke).
• cards and the simple shapes lent themselves easily to stenciling for limited mass production.In France, stencils were used to make playing cards. Though other countries had developed their own sets of card 'suits', the suits developed in France in the Middle Ages are the ones we know and use today. The cards appeared in the 1480's and were simple, one-color shapes designated each suit. There was no other decoration at that time on the
Stenciling in the 17th and Stenciling in the 17th and 18th Centuries18th Centuries
Panel of Domino Sheets 1742-43
• With the advent of the printing press in 1439 in Germany, stencils became marketed for the first time on a large scale. Pattern books circulated throughout Europe. By the 17th-century stencil patterns were used on veneers for furniture design as well as for textile decoration. At this time, cloth had traditionally been used to cover the interior walls of affluent homes in France. In Rouen, French stencil makers had developed a system of stenciling patterns on heavy sheets of paper which came only in lengths of 1-1.25 metres (3-4 feet) by 46 centimeters (18 inches) width. These segments of paper were called 'dominoes' and were the forerunner of wallpaper.
• The dominoes were stenciled first and then adhered to the wall. Hand-stenciled 'wallpapers' began to appear in the finest houses in France and then the rest of Europe. Stencils were also used for 'flocking' walls.
• A stencil was cut and placed on the wall and a glue was applied through the stencil. Wool flock or particles were adhered to the wall. The effect was similar to embroidery or applique and provided texture and warmth to cold flat walls.
Early American Stencil Art Early American Stencil Art in the 18th and 19th-in the 18th and 19th-
CenturiesCenturies
• By the 18th century the art of stenciling had reached the New World. Stenciled floors predated stenciled walls in early American homes, however. This fashion of painting floors was adopted immediately by the most affluent and from there the technique spread into the surrounding rural homes of countryside hamlets. A 1739 booklet from England exhibited geometric and floral floor stencil patterns popular at that time in Europe. Floor stenciling was done to simulate carpet on bare floors, or to imitate more costly inlaid woods. A varnish was used to seal the painted floor and over time the varnish mellowed to a rich gold and brown patina.
• This caused the colors underneath (usually black, red, green, and white) to appear as fine inlaid or variegated woods set characteristically in a background of yellow ochre, grey, Indian red, and green. The combination most often used was lamp black over pumpkin pine, either natural or painted yellow ochre.
• Stenciled floorcloths were also a popular decorative choice of the time. During the Clipper Ship era (1810-1870), the canvas from ripped sails began to be used as floor cloths. As floor cloths were transportable, they provided an economical and ideal medium on which to stencil pattern.
• In addition to walls and floors, Americans stenciled bedspreads, tablecloths, furniture and household articles such as boxes, trunks, and trays. The material used to cut stencils from included oiled heavy paper, tin, stiffened linen, and sometimes leather.
• As interiors of American homes evolved from rough-hewn timber to plaster walls a need arose to decorate these plain surfaces. Settlers who had the means started to stencil directly on the walls instead of using more expensive dominos imported from Europe. At that time stencil patterns were inspired by printed wallpapers which had by then become popular in Europe and supplanted stenciled walls to some degree. American stencil patterns were larger and much simpler than their printed counterparts and direct stenciling on surfaces was a more economical option than the costly printed wallpapers and hand painted furniture imported from Europe.
• The earliest recorded date of a stencil used in America was 1778 in a home in New England. Many stencil artisans at that time originated from England and the German Palatinate and they brought their own cultural sensibilities to the designs they painted. They were professional journeymen/itinerants who traveled from town to town, singly or in pairs, to seek work in exchange for room and board or a small wage. The artisan carried with him a supply of stencils cut from thick paper, dry pigments, a short brush or two, a few measuring tools, a builder's cord, and a piece of chalk. The patron would supply sour milk as the medium in which to mix the pigments. These journeymen shared their designs as different stencil styles painted in the same house have been found in individual houses in New England. Colors used in early American stenciling were strong as homes were often quite dark.
Moses Eaton Moses Eaton
• Probably the best known and best documented stencil artist of the 18th and early 19th-century was Moses Eaton. Moses Eaton moved from Needham, Massachusetts to Hancock, New Hampshire in 1792. In 1796 his son, Moses, Jr., was born. Moses, Jr., who would later become a stencil artist as well, most likely apprenticing to his father before going out on his own. Stencil patterns dating from 1800-1840 were found along with some of Eaton's tools in the attic of his house after he had died. Both artisans contributed to the 'folk art' style that was developing in America.
• Moses Eaton used current printed wallpaper designs of the day as a guide for placement of motifs and patterns but before long his stenciling artistry had developed its own unique characteristics. Though simpler and less intricate than printed wallpaper, American stencil patterns became an art form in their own right. Motifs were popular; the swag and pendant known as the Liberty Bell was a particularly patriotic emblem of post-revolutionary America; flower baskets represented friendship; the oak leaf, strength and loyalty; the willow, everlasting life; and the pineapple, hospitality.
• Hearts symbolized love and happiness and often formed part of the decor of a homestead for a new bride. Color was vibrant and eclectic; red and green were common stencil colors and were used over walls colored in raspberry pink, salmon, dove grey, bright yellow, and yellow ochre. Stenciling, though less expensive than printed wallpaper, was considered to be more personal and stylish. Many homes in New England still have extant examples of early American stencil art. There are 68 known stencil patterns attributed to Moses Eaton which are still used today in American homes
• During the Federal period (1783-1820), stencils achieved great popularity. At that time it was considered fashionable to define the outline or edges of patterns or shapes, whether it be a piece of furniture or an architectural element. Braid, tape, and other edgings on clothing, borders on floors, carpets, fabric, and window hangings, edge motifs on silver or border patterns on china were used to emphasize the outlines of the piece. Stencils were also used to outline architectural features and elements, such as mantels, doors, walls, and chair rails with decorative stylized borders.
• Furniture makers in America had also made use of stencils. Few early Americans could afford gilded, carved, and brass-mounted furniture imported from Europe. Cabinet makers discovered a method that simulated European designs; they rubbed multi-colored bronze powders through a stencil onto a tacky varnished surface. They were able to shade the powders around the edges of the stencil and thus to achieve depth and tone, add dimension, and soften the image of the design. This was a practical application of stencils which produced many elegant designs.
Theorem Painting Theorem Painting
• Also in the 1800's a new vogue for stenciling reached academies and boarding schools where young girls were taught the art of 'theorem' painting. Theorem painting was usually a still life using multiple overlays of stencils and hand painting techniques. A stencil of a still life (usually fruit or flowers) was placed on fabric (usually velvet). The motif was painted and another overlay (perhaps leaves) was placed next to or overlapping the already painted motif and colored as well. With careful shading and placement of overlays a realistic "painting" could be achieved. The finished work was matted and framed and hung on the wall in the parlor. On the whole, the designs were simple and stylized, and multiple overlays were always used. The advantage to this process was that there were no 'bridges' or gaps betweent the overlays.
Stenciling in the Late Stenciling in the Late 19th and Early 20th-19th and Early 20th-
CenturiesCenturies
• By the late 19th century the Industrial Revolution had enabled mass production of wallpapers and other household items. Wallpapers were now available to the less affluent and began to soar in popularity. Even though Rudyard Kipling in 1899 had described a 'cozy study' as one 'decorated with a dado, a stencil, and cretonne hangings', stencils began to fall out of favor. Louis Comfort Tiffany and the Arts and Crafts movement kept stenciling alive but the availability of wallpapers and printed decorations of all sorts had started to relegate the art of stenciling to a non-relevant status
• Early film makers were still using stencils to color film frames. The hand colored painting of frames was a widely practiced art when color film production was in its early stages. In 1906, the Pathe company in France had developed a mechanical method to color frames using stencils which spread throughout the industry.
• A small surge of interest in stenciling occurred in the beginning of the 20th century, when stencils were used for typefaces and other coloring techniques. Stencil-like letters were used to express a utilitarian aesthetic or a vernacular sensibility. Simple, spare, geometric, and stylized forms were the style choices for advertising, art books, typefaces, and posters
• French publishers, influenced by Japanese printed textiles, used stencils to provide color separations for book illustrations. The process was similar to the hand coloring used 100 years before for theorem painting, but it differed in its painstaking efforts to reproduce exactly the nuanced tones of a color in a painting or image. Art book reproductions of Fauvist painters such as Derain required cutting separate stencils for every tint. Some of the best examples of fine printing using stencils are the reproductions of Pablo Picasso's Ballet RuPablo which were done in 1920.
• Acer Noir Typeface 1936 • During the Art Deco era of the 1920's and
1930's the use of stencils reached its last great height until today's upsurge of interest in stencil design. The french type foundry firm Deberny et Peignot offered their famous display typeface named "bifur" in 1929, followed by "Acier Noir" in 1936. Both typefaces expressed the spirit and style of the era. That same year Harper's Bazaar used stencils for the typeface in its logo. As printing technologies advanced, however, the art and craft of stenciling became almost obsolete. By the late 1970's stencils were slowly coming back into fashion.
• In reaction to technological improvements which had supplied customers with a dizzying array of decorative options for the home, the desire for more personal, custom-made, and hand-painted patterns and designs began to resurge, and stencils today are as popular as they were in the 18th-century.
The Art of Stenciling Today: The Art of Stenciling Today: Rediscovered and Rediscovered and
RevolutionizedRevolutionized• Stencils today comprise a wealth of
historic precedent and stencil design choices are limitless. Stencils are now most commonly made from mylar, a flexible, strong, washable, transparent film which can be used mutiple times. Whether a designer is looking for the designs of a stylistic period or a patterns specific to a certain culture, whether custom-made or commercial, a stencil is available or can be custom-cut to specification.
• Stencil design today ranges from stylistic periods such as the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Roccoco, the Neoclassical, the Victorian, the Art Nouveau and Art Deco eras to American styles such as the Arts and Crafts movement and American folk art design. Patterns specific to a certain culture are also highly popular at the turn of the 21st century. From Chinese textiles and pottery designs, Japanese kimono and paintings, Persian floral motifs, Indian paisleys, Mughal designs, and Indonesian geometrics to Turkish and Arabic tessellated tile patterns, stencil design has reached a new height of artistry and innovation.
• Stencils are used to decorate walls, ceilings and ceiling rosettes, floors such as concrete, stone and vinyl, carpets such as sisal, seagrass, canvas, and low-pile fibers, architectural elements such as doors, frames, moldings, staircase treads and risers, columns, pilasters, and mantelpieces. On soft furnishings, stencils are used on window fabric treatments, tablecloths, bedspreads, pillows, and lampshades. Stencils can be used to decorate furniture in the form of motifs, garlands, swags, wreaths, and panels, and to adorn household items such as trunks, trays and boxes.
• The development of new 'finishes' for surfaces combined with the art of stenciling has given fresh and innovative choices to architects and designers.
• New innovations in surface treatment include textured finishes such as suede, stone, sand, reptile hide, stucco, leather, and slubbed silk; sheened finishes such as metallic and pearlescent glazes, paints and plasters; matte finishes such as lime paint washes and milk paint; and raised finishes using plasters and stuccos. Whether using a stencil over a surface already prepared with one of these finishes with an analagous or complimentary medium, or using these mediums themselves with which to stencil on a simple glazed wall, new and exquisite surface design is accessible, affordable, and is still, as it was 32,000 years ago, unique. The beauty and individuality of a custom made stencil is a vibrant and fresh option for fine interior decoration and as in the fine homes in centuries past, stenciling still offers the quality of fine hand-painting in the artistry of a skilled artisan.
The Future of Stenciling As the art form continues to evolve, stencil
designers such as Royal Design Studio's founder Melanie Royals, have led the way to
developing new techniques, applications, and artistic possibilities for stencil decoration: free-form stenciling, embossed surfaces,
incorporating decorative and textured finishes. Today's Professionally-Minded Decorators are
presented with an never-ending variety of choices for creating unique and artistic
environments by using a design tool that has been incorporated into the fabric of decorative arts for thousands of years: the ever-evolving
stencil.