The historical process of the invention of printing
Movable type printing invented by China has been further developed and perfected abroad, and has become the mainstream of modern printing. The ancient movable type printing in China was improved and greatly developed by the German Gutenberg. His lead alloy movable type printing is widely used all over the world, and it is still one of the contemporary printing methods.
Movable type printing was established in Gutenberg around 1440 ~ 1448. Although it was invented 400 years later, Gutenberg made great success in improving movable type materials, applying fat ink and manufacturing printing machines, thus laying the foundation for modern printing. Scholars all over the world admit that the founder of modern printing is German Gutenberg.
The material used for Gutenberg movable type is an alloy of lead, tin and antimony, which is easy to form and has good printing efficiency. Even today, 500 years later, the composition of movable type has not changed much. In the process of casting characters, Gutenberg used boxes and molds for casting characters, which made the specifications of movable type easy to control and convenient for mass production. Gutenberg also pioneered fat ink, which greatly improved the printing quality, and fat ink has been used to this day. The book printing machine invented by Gutenberg, although simple in structure, has improved the printing operation and is a copy of the later printing machines. All the above are not found in Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing, which is also the technical reason why movable type printing in Bi Sheng failed to spread widely. Gutenberg's invention made printing a big step forward.
The ancient movable type printing first spread from Germany to Italy, then to France, and by the time it reached Britain in 1477, it had spread all over Europe. A century later, it spread to Asian countries, 15*** to Japan, and the following year to China. Gutenberg's lettering, typesetting and printing methods, as well as his pioneering spiral hand-held printing machine, have been used all over the world for more than 400 years. During this period, the printing industry was small, and most of the printing houses were handicrafts.
1845, Germany produced the first fast printing machine, and the mechanization process of printing technology began.
1860, the United States produced the first batch of rotating machines. Later, Germany successively produced two-color fast printing machines and rotary printing machines for printing newspapers. By 1900, a six-color wheel rotating machine was manufactured. From 1845, after about a century, all industrialized countries have successively completed the mechanization of printing industry.
Since the 1950s, printing technology has continuously adopted the achievements of emerging science and technology such as electronic technology, laser technology, information science and polymer chemistry, and entered the modernization stage. In 1970s, the popularity of photosensitive resin relief printing and PS printing made printing step into the road of multi-color rapid development. In the 1980s, the application of electronic color scanner and full-page imposition system made the reproduction of color images informationized and standardized, while the continuous progress of Chinese character information processing and laser phototypesetting technology made the text typesetting technology undergo fundamental changes. In the 1990s, the introduction of desktop publishing showed that computers had entered the printing field in an all-round way. In a word, with the rapid development of modern science and technology, printing technology has also changed its face rapidly.
The origin of the invention of printing
With the invention of brush and ink, scholars can not only read, but also write, without the need for an engraver to wait on them at any time as in the era of knife and pen, and it is more convenient to record ideas. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, although there were many great politicians and thinkers in China's history, no one wrote a book in person, which is the reason.
In the Qin Dynasty, Meng Tian invented the method of soaking wool with lime water to remove the water-repellent substance on the surface of wool, which helped to finalize the manufacturing technology of writing brush, and the writing brush really became a writing tool. At this point, the ancients found a way to write fluently and save time and effort, so that writing is no longer a chore. People in the leisure class will kill time by writing a few strokes in their spare time, and strive to write beautifully, and even try to laugh at each other, thus creating a precedent for calligraphy art. Li Si in Qin Dynasty was the first great calligrapher in history, which shows the maturity of pen and ink technology.
The structure of Chinese characters is complex, and everyone writes different words, some are beautiful and some are vulgar and ugly, which urges people to pursue the art of calligraphy and an important way to improve their calligraphy skills is to imitate good calligraphy works, but people who write well generally keep accounts and so on, and their works are mostly * * * official documents, which are difficult for ordinary people to see. Inscriptions were popular in ancient times. It is the best mode for people to practice calligraphy to find people who write well and then carve them by masons. The stone tablet is too heavy to take home and continue to imitate.
Paper appeared in the late Western Han Dynasty, but at that time, the paper fiber was rough and the inking efficiency was poor. It is mainly used to replace cloth for wrapping and padding, and occasionally a note is written on the wrapping paper, such as the paper with the name of the medicine found in Hangquan * * * or Juyan * * * site. At first, the paper-making technology draws lessons from the mature reeling technology in China. The fiber material is soaked in water to mash and disperse the fiber, and the broken fiber is taken out and spread to cool. The fiber is thick and the writing efficiency is poor, so it can't be widely used as writing materials. During the Eastern Han Dynasty and Emperor Wudi of Han Dynasty, Cai Lun reformed the paper-making method and made a new type of paper with fine, uniform and fine fibers, which greatly improved the writing efficiency of paper, and the main use of paper turned to writing.
The paper is thin and soft, which makes calligraphy practitioners come up with a rubbing method that imitates seals and takes them home to imitate, that is, rubbing. The invention of paper made rubbings possible, so that every calligrapher could practice good handwriting, and also created a large number of calligraphers in the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty. The western alphabet has a simple structure and a small number of letters, and it is written with a hard pen. You can write flashy, but there is no art at all. After writing dozens of letters, people can write a lot. Rubbings can be written on paper without imitating other people's handwriting. There is no need to make paper, so westerners have no social basis for inventing papermaking.
The imperial examination system, which sprouted in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, began in the Tang Dynasty. With the rise of the imperial examination system, there is a demand for spreading good articles in society. Professional copywriters copied many good articles by imitating rubbings, and then combined seals with regular script to create block printing. It appeared between the prosperous Tang Dynasty and the middle Tang Dynasty, prevailed in the Northern Song Dynasty, and finally matured with the invention of clay movable type by Buyi Bi Sheng.
Today, there is still a saying among civil servants that "writing a good hand and writing a good article" are the two basic skills of civil servants, that is, collectors of ancient books. Writing a good hand and writing a good article are the characteristics of Chinese characters in China, which are determined by some political systems in the history of China, and come down in one continuous line with a perfect and practical writing system, which are not available in western history, thus determining that papermaking and printing can only be produced in China!
Brief introduction to the invention of printing
Before the invention of printing, the spread of culture mainly depended on handwritten books. Handwriting is time-consuming and laborious, and it is prone to errors and omissions, which not only hinders the development of culture, but also brings undue losses to the spread of culture. Seals and stone carvings provide direct experience enlightenment for printing, and the method of inking stone tablets with paper directly points out the direction for block printing. The development of printing in China has gone through two stages: block printing and movable type printing, which has presented a generous gift for the development of mankind. Printing is characterized by convenience, flexibility, time-saving and labor-saving, and it is a major breakthrough in ancient printing.
Printing in China has a long history and is widely spread. It is an important part of China culture; It germinated with the birth of China culture and evolved with the development of China culture. In terms of origin, it has experienced four historical periods: origin, ancient times, modern times and contemporary times, with a development course of more than 5,000 years. In the early days, in order to record events and spread experience and knowledge, Han people created early characters and sought the media to record them. Limited by the means of production at that time, people can only use natural objects to record the number of words. For example, Chinese characters are carved on natural materials, such as rock walls, leaves, animal bones, stones and bark. Because written materials are very expensive, only important events can be recorded briefly. Most people's experience can only be spread orally, which seriously affects the development of social culture.