In the early days of the invention of printing, only monochrome printing was used. With the improvement of printing technology, people are not content with black-and-white prints, so there are double-color and multi-color overprints.
The printing of banknotes, such as "Gaizi" and "Wanzi," which began in the Song Dynasty, has begun to use red, blue and black colors, overprinting patterns and official seals for security and security purposes. This is about the beginning of two-color and multicolor printing.
In the transcripts of the Tang and Song dynasties, it was useful to copy the texts and annotations in the two languages ​​of the ink and the ink, which provided a precedent for the imprinting of the book. The earliest extant book, the ink book of Zhu Mo, was the book of the Book of Diamond Scriptures engraved in the Jinfu Temple in Jiangling, Hubei Province from the Yuan Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty (1340). The scripture (illustration) is in red, the note and the pine branch in the figure are black. This book is disassembled.
Although the two-color overprint technology has been solved in the Song Dynasty, it requires a black and red version before printing, and the printing process is also more complicated. Not only need to print twice, but also need accurate color registration, so the cost of the book has also increased accordingly, it failed to promote.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the private printing industry was booming. After numerous publications such as historical records and drama novels, the market competition for books was fierce. Some printing workshops began to occupy the market with new varieties, and bicolor and multicolor printing began to increase.
In the late 16th century, color printing was widely popular. Wuxing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, and Huizhou gradually became centers of printing. These regions have developed cultures, prosperous economy, and many people who read books, thus promoting the prosperity of the printing industry. For the purpose of the examination of the Imperial Examination, books and private books were printed with a large number of books with punctuation, comments, and comments, and were overprinted in different colors. These kinds of books are very good for reading because they are easy to read, and they sell well. Various bookstores have followed suit and the cover book has been popular for a while. One of the best-known overprint books is Wu Xing's bookstore for the two surnames, Yi Shi and Ling Shi. Their printed books are not only variety but also of high quality. The Weishi Bookshop has the largest number of grades in the Ming Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty, there were two color printing copies of "Zuo Zhuan", "Lao Zi", "Zhuang Zi", "Lie Zi", "Chu Ci" and "Dongpo Yi Zhuan", and three Color cover printing "Mencius", "Warring State Policy", four-color cover printing "Mandarin" and so on. Ling Yumeng wrote the most books for Ling Shi at the beginning, including two-color overprints such as Han Feizi, Lu Shichunqi, and Huainanzi. In the nineteenth year of Wanli (1581), Ling Xiaochu printed the “Shishuo Xinyu†with four colors and printed the texts and commentaries in black, red, blue, and brown respectively. The Qing government’s internal government had also printed books such as “word spectrum†and “spectrum†in two-tone printing.
Source: Guangdong Gift Network