Pure Offerings on the Desk in the Studio of the Nine Tripods (九鬲房之案头清供)

Woodblock printing on paper emerged in China around the seventh century as a way to preserve and copy Buddhist texts. Since that time, printmakers in East Asia have refined the technique by experimenting with color, size, and ways of bringing the ink and paper into contact with the block.

Today, Chinese artists employ this time-honored medium to depict everything from landscapes to abstract forms. They also use different types of pigments to create varying degrees of opacity. This work comes from a portfolio that was commissioned in 1999 by the Muban Foundation in London to recognize the achievements of Chinese printmakers. This work demonstrates the woodblock print’s potential to connect the visual worlds of traditional and contemporary China.