Chinese Woodcuts and Modern Printing

-

Thesis Statement: Chinese Woodcuts mirror the development of modern printing techniques, however they were developed in different time periods and within different cultures.

ITEM #1
Topic Sentence: Chinese Woodcuts

Different Features #1
Topic Sentence:
Reason: Chinese woodcuts were developed in order to reproduce text in a way which was quicker and more efficient than hand-lettering. However, this method utilized a non-Roman alphabet, which presented unique challenges in that there were many more distinct characters in a given block of text than the woodcut’s Western counterpart in modern printing presses.
Evidence to Support: Han characters do not adhere to a singular system of character generation, such as in the case of Korean, and so each woodcut must be made to suit the text at hand, rather than pulled from a pre-existing pool of letters.

ITEM #2
Topic Sentence: Modern Printing Press

Different Features #2
Topic Sentence: The modern printing press utilizes the Roman alphabet, which has allowed for distinct challenges and benefits as compared to Chinese woodcut.
Reason: The modern printing press has been allowed to develop at a quicker pace than many Eastern inventions due to its use of the Roman alphabet, simplifying the number of blocks needed to produce any combinations of letters in a given piece of text.
Evidence to Support: The Roman alphabet only possesses 26 letterforms, in addition to some tertiary letterforms in punctuation and other symbols. Chinese characters, meanwhile, number in the tens of thousands.

Similar Features
Topic Sentence: These methods share a goal, in that they allowed more information to flow more smoothly between denizens of their respective cultures.
Reason: Each method was produced to the end of allowing for faster, more accessible communication, without the need for calligraphers and the chance for human error in copying text.
Evidence to Support: Each method was self-contained once set in place, allowing for repeat copies to be sent out with greater efficiency than hand-copying.

Conclusion: Overall, these methods represent a difference between the East and the West, not only in terms of culture and language, but also how these cultures influenced technological advancement and the development of pre-existing methods. Even so, the East and the West is united in a spirit of ingenuity, which seeks to make life, and the passage of information, easier for its people.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Russian Constructivism and Collage

-
Image
Reflecting on more traditional techniques for creating graphic art, Russian Constructivism overlaps somewhat with collage, as they seem to result in a similar independence of shapes and colors. With Constructivism, as with collage, each element can only be deliberately placed, as they’re individual objects being brought together to form a cohesive image. Their marked differences come to bear in just how deliberate they are. In most cases, collage as a technique is an art form in itself, but with Constructivism, the process isn’t nearly as important as the finished product. Collage incorporates not only shapes which can be difficult to form in the first place, whether by scissors or knife, and colors which are often already applied. Collage can be a more casual form of art-making, in which the process and its rough edges can be just as valuable as the finished piece. In some cases, adding to the collage, taking from it, and generally treating it like a boon by nature of being a
Read more

New Objectivity and Expressionism

-
Image
I found New Objectivity particularly interesting, as it sought, in a strange reversal, to rebel against Expressionism by emphasizing the mundane. In this regard, I believe Expressionism represents a romantic lens through which to view daily life, whereas New Objectivity seeks the truth of daily life. In this pursuit, they weren’t necessarily pessimistic, just as Expressionism isn’t necessarily more optimistic. I will seek to first break down the differences in tactics between the two to portray their meaning, and then I will break down the differences between the meanings themselves. In Expressionism, it distorts daily life through several avenues: warping forms, dulling or brightening colors, or simply portraying impossible situations in which to frame the emotion they seek to portray. Overall, Expressionism deals in emotion and the metaphysical: curiosity, doubt, lust, and fury all inflict themselves on the surroundings first and foremost, shaping the world and thereby the moo
Read more

Futurism and the Cyberpunk Genre

-
Image
  With the Industrial Revolution came the miracle and paradox of the 20th century. Never before in human history has technology reached such a state of rapid, clamoring, and all-encompassing advancement, to the point that with every new generation, the gap between the technologies they each grew up with only widens. With such a rapid shift in lifestyle, most notably towards the end of the era of massive population migration into cities in the early 20th century, many people had many responses. While some despaired, lamenting the loss of humanity’s connection to its roots, other movements took the shift in stride. I will focus on one such group, and juxtapose it against a similar, yet distinct modern movement known as the “Cyberpunk” genre, popularized by such films as Bladerunner, The Matrix, and Ghost in the Shell. Futurism had a bit of an identity crisis when it first emerged. Critics of the movement declared it hardly distinct from previous movements, such as Impressionism, a
Read more