OCR Text |
Show of printing, like the Oriental. style of riting, requires suft, absorbent paper whic best only in Asia. Chinese and Japanese wood-blocks could not be printed in the Orienta manner by using the hard-sized; rag papers of Europe. The soft, delicate tones o Oriental wood-blocks are enkanced by the use of mulberry and mitsumata papers, an cuen American and European ood-block artists fnd the exquisite papers of Japan fi superior to European handmade papers in both printing and aesthetic qualities he paper of Japan, Korea, and China used. in the myriad ways that have bee outlined is 10 @ great extent genuine handmade, and fubricated from one of the severa ouricics of natie bmlm, jmm bamboo or stra, or from an adnisture of thes to the natural bark film: a practice which ineaitably lowers the quality of the paper In Europe and America handmade paper is regarded as a lusury, something t be used only for the printing of expensive de luxe books, or for etchings or elaborat stationery-indeed the greater part of the people of the Occident live their entire live without ever even seeing any paper that has been made by the old traditional han process. In the more cultured Orient this condition does not exist; every per Plutocrat to peasant, comes in daily contact with common, usefil things been made of handmade paper - things fabricated by artisans who regard thei A The handmade papermakers of the Orient, unlike those of the Occident, do not fee that their handiwork should be restricted only to the libraries and drazoing-1ooms o those who have the means to indulge their tastes in finely-printed. books and expensiv engravings. Their art is not exclusive, but inclusive, an ideal hich is the result of a ancient civilization where handmade paper has aleways been used for making lowl objects, and where traditions and training have been handed. down through countles gmrmmzm ufpapmnal(iuq Samilics us of the handmade paper industry of Japan would show between twelo mm.sz = fifteen hundred individual mills, each operating from one to forty vats I China, where a census would be almost an impossibility, there are literall e o 204 Vot Loy vy of U, Al s v |